No one expected to live in a pandemic or forecast that the whole world will be in lockdown where curfews would be imposed in as what has happened in early 2020. Businesses have been impacted differently in which some have suffered and incurred losses, others are struggling to exist, while a few others are benefiting from the crisis. To illustrate this point, on the one hand, the hospitality, airlines and tourism industries were hit very hard, on the other hand medical technology, online technology in all its forms and pharmaceuticals industries were leveraging with a very high demand. But, in any case, what should small to medium enterprises start doing differently?

The answer would certainly be thinking out of the box, starting from investing in technology. Whether we like it or not, the whole educational system has been transformed with online teaching and learning; learning management systems were demanded, online conferencing apps were used and certainly educational apps were utilized. Schools who have invested previously in such systems did not face any difficulties in continuing their pedagogical activities however, other schools , took a longer time to adapt in terms of training their teachers, parents and students. This investment has to continue in all its form of virtual reality, online conferencing and Learning Management Systems (LMS). Parents, students and administrators have to ride the same boat in the future and keep integrating all the educational process in a blended way. This will extend to institutes, academies, schools, universities and training centres.

Similarly for the nonemergency healthcare, those clinics that had patient management systems and online consultations ready did not have to go to the snooze phase during the pandemic, while others had to waste time in chasing technology suppliers to provide and train on online healthcare. Healthcare providers should take recent incidents as opportunity and begin an opportunity from now on to segregate their shifts into to transform their mechanism from patients’ visits into online consultations, and online consultations, where all the physical boundaries will disperse and international patients will seek such services i.e. more income. For other medical providers, such as pharmaceuticals, legislations should be in place to send online prescriptions permit doctors and patients to to get the medicine delivered straight to the door steps.

With the two major examples of healthcare and education, let us discuss other entrepreneurial and business activities and ask a couple of questions: Why did some shops and stores close down when a legal window was opened for them to sell online? Was it difficult for showrooms to provide virtual services? Well, the definite answer is no, they could have done much more. With Whatsapp Business App and other apps being available, as well as the same salespersons who work for you, let your customers enjoy live why not and dedicated video-call tours around the showroom, in the same way that they visit the actual showroom. Alternatively have a virtual showroom with simple navigation accessible.

With the presence of such apps, I just wonder why businesses did not use those free features! If you cannot invest in an e-store or a website with commercial features, simply upload your catalogue on all of your social media platforms and through online payment systems that are in your reach, use the simplest methods on WhatsApps Business catalogue in the setting, or through Instagram story highlights, or through a Google Drive Link that can be shared easily. Websites such as Facebook started offering their shopping platforms for free such as Shopify, and some Ministries of Commerce such as Bahrain’s MOICT launched an electronic mall for free, mall. bh, in addition to C2C platforms that can be utilized for B2C such as Amazon and Ebay and so on. What about delivery? In many countries around the region, there are delivery companies with strong infrastructure that you can sign agreements with, or you can deal with trusted freelancers who have their own cars and offer services to all, or you can even hire your own delivery drivers.

Indeed, some businesses were banned from both home services and delivery, such as salons, massage shops, health spas and clubs, yet all these businesses could have added a trade activity to their commercial licence and start delivering bundles of products and provide online/live guidance and assistance to the customers. A culinary school for instance, was delivering the ingredients and offering the live class to the students. Imagine a salon offering direct online/live support after selling its bundle of scissors, creams and delivering shaving kits and machines. The idea is to think outside the box, and to prevent negativity in all forms in your business. For instance, brilliant ideas surfaced when hotels and private hospitals merged to offer private quarantine services as their product.

What you need to do is the simple (SWOT) Analysis to put a strategy to go forward, where you brainstorm with your teams or partners, the strengths (S) that you have as a business such as your brand name, or quality product, reputation … etc., and then highlight the weaknesses (W) such as no available space at the store, or the limited bandwidth capacity on your website. Then pinpoint the threats (T) such as legislations of hygiene, physical distancing and other restrictive decrees, or even fear amongst your staff, or the decreasing buying power of your customers. Finally extract opportunities (O) from all of these, for instance providing early bird packages with discounted rates for any service or product that you sell, in order to keep the money flowing in, or starting delivery services, or even embedding hygiene in all your promotional activities, for example airlines started such a campaign by showing prospective passengers about their latest filters in the cooling systems, and the hygiene measures they prepared for every journey from now. You can do the same by showing your customers how your place or product is more hygienic now. Once you’re done form the two internal factors Strengths and Weaknesses, and the two external factors, the Threats and Opportunities.You will find yourself and your business in a better stand and prepared for the post-corona period. We can discuss more and more about this topic and provide ideas, but, it is your chance now to start gathering your teams virtually through the many free available platforms and suggest the three pillars of your post-corona business;

1- The new internal investments that can support your core business
2- The additional services to support your consumers and
3- The strategy that prepares you to successfully pass the pandemic

Hussain Sharakhi
A renowned trainer and regional speaker for more than
14 years. He specialises in Soft & Social Skills, Sales &
Marketing, Blended Learning, Human Resources and Linguistics