Tag: Coronavirus Impact

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Strategy

COVID-19 Impact: 5 Tips to Help Your Businesses Recover from Coronavirus Pandemic

Businesses in India (Photo Credits: Pexels)

Businesses have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and are now limping back to normalcy. The Indian economy is now expected to see a faster turnaround with less disruptions to business operations as it opens up gradually. The coronavirus lockdown forced several businesses to shut while consumption slumped, investments took a hit and jobs were lost. In the time of crisis, it can be hard to stay calm, be optimistic and find ways and means to drive your business. For entrepreneurs and business leaders, being calm and working under pressure is part of the job.

In this article, we’ve put together some ideas that will help you in business recovery. Your business recovery may not happen overnight, but you can make it achievable by trying and not giving up.

Here are 4 Tips that can help your Businesses Recover from COVID-19 Pandemic

Strategic Marketing Plan

The pandemic and the lockdown slowed down the world. However, this time can be utilised by business leaders to strategically think about different ways to establish themselves in the market again once things get normal. An entrepreneur need to think of ways that can help them establish the brand identity again in the market. You need to understand your competitors and work on the leads.

Expect Delayed Payments

Businesses have witnessed a lull amid the coronavirus crisis. As businesses struggle to get back to normalcy, you can expect any restart to be a little sluggish. Almost all of us are going to be in the same boat. As you are struggling to re-establish a healthy cash flow, it’s highly likely your customers will be grappling with that too.

Look For New Sales Channels

As people now prefer being home as a precautionary measure amid the pandemic, this gives an entrepreneur a chance to establish and look for new sales channels to sell their products. Find out ways to serve your clients and customers via alternative sales channels. If you have a retail business and the pandemic has hit you hard and there is no footfall, trying looking for e-commerce offerings. If you are into hotel business, majority of people are trying and avoiding meeting at public places, in such case, you can be open for takeaways meals instead.

Review Your Website and Enhance Digital Marketing

As the economy opens, this is an opportunity for you to review your website and update the information with latest trends and demands. Take a look at your competitor’s websites and try to understand if you can add more value to your content, which will help you stand out from the rest in the market. Go digital and promote your website on social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter among others. Try to build a marketing strategy if you are not already doing so. Having a plan and campaign ready as social media marketing campaigns can connect your targeted audience with a marketing message immediately.

Communicate Openly With Your Customers

‘A Customer is the King’ is an age-old business mantra which shows the importance of customers in every business. Businesses that treat their customers as king have reported higher returns than their competitors who puts little to the value of the customers. Hence, be open and clear with your customers and understand their demands. Don’t just sell your product, but provide solutions to them. If this your mantra, no force can stop you from succeeding and taking your business to another level.

 

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Startup

Home Business Ideas: 4 Brilliant Work From Home Ideas That You Should Consider Taking Up

Home Business Ideas (Photo Credits: Pexels)

At a time when the world is battling the coronavirus pandemic, people have been forced to work from hone than ever. Whiles some are working remotely, some have started their own small businesses amid the crisis. Staying productive and maintaining a balance between professional and personal life is the only way out to survive the crisis. Amid the crisis, employers are encouraging or requiring people to work from home for an indeterminate amount of time. If you are planning to start a home-based business, you need to first understand what interests you and what you are good at!

Remember, a business will survive if there is a need of your product in the market. The struggle comes when you have to create a demand for your product, which takes a great deal of time, efforts and funding. Of course, there are pros and cons to consider when deciding whether a home-based business is right for you. If you’re new to the work-from-home lifestyle, you will have to change some of your routine habits to make working from home a success.

Buy products in bulk to sell

If you want to start with a small business, this hack can work wonders! Amid the pandemic and COVID-19 restrictions, people avoid venturing out to buy things. If you have good contacts, you can buy products in bulk and sell them in your circle, neighbourhood and among your pals. These products can be really simple ones, like cups, mugs, coasters or maybe other daily essential items. Maybe you know of some unique products that aren’t readily available in your market despite a demand for them.

Sell homemade products

Be your own boss and sell what you make. There is no other joy that creating something of your own and selling your own handmade products. If you are the maker yourself, you can consider turning your hobby into a business. If you like making candles, cushion covers, curtains, dresses, or anything else, you can create your products and make it commercial. You can also sell gift baskets, handmade jewellery, sweets, homemade cookies, personalized gifts, etc. The only thing you should focus on is to promote and make it reach large audience via social media. As home business idea, there are plenty of opportunities for designers to create and sell their own clothing from home.

Baker

If you enjoy cooking, especially baking, and you can spend a great deal of time baking in order to create enough goods to sell, taking up baking as a profession is meant for you! It is rewarding which fetches you decent income. With too much competition in the market, it is tough to stand out in the crowd. To take up baking business, buy some equipment and set up a commercial kitchen at home. You can sell your products to local shops or businesses or sell products online. Read up on regulations to be compliant!

Freelance Writer

If you are fond of writing and can play with words, it has huge potential to be one of the most profitable business ideas. Freelance writing is the perfect job for people planning to set up their own blog or digital content firm. You don’t need any formal training to become a freelance writer.

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Technology

Eric Yuan, Founder and CEO of Zoom, Named ‘Businessperson of Year 2020’ by TIME Magazine

Eric Yuan (Photo Credits: Twitter)

Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom, has been named the ‘Businessperson of the 2020’ by TIME Magazine for the growth of his video conferencing platform amid the coronavirus pandemic. Yuan, who began at WebEx as a coder, soon became integral to the creation of his video-conferencing platform that served as a communication medium for millions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The birth of Zoom by the 50-year-old founder and CEO became successful after he struggled for a decade to build the no-frills, highly functional conferencing platform for businesses. With his determination and hardwork, Zoom was now being used in all sorts of unexpected places, from delivery rooms to grade schools.

Zoom’s popularity grew in 2020 as the world was hit with the pandemic at start of the year, which forced people to stay indoors, maintain social distancing and work from home. With the pandemic spreading its arms over the world, Zoom started growing with leaps and bounds, helping people to continue with the work through online mode. The video conferencing platform allows individuals to communicate virtually face to face. Zoom is now in the business of connecting everybody, originally intended for businesses and universities. Business Ideas For 2021: Here Are 4 Business Ideas Which You Can Start Next Year.

“We never thought about consumers or K-12 schools when we started planning the year 2020,” Yuan was quoted by TIME while speaking over Zoom from his home in the Bay Area. He had ordered employees to work from home in early March, but it wasn’t until weeks later—around when U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted a photo of a Cabinet meeting over Zoom—that it dawned on Yuan that his company might play a major role in this new virtual world order.

Yuan soon found himself serving as the world’s relationship liaison, social chair, principal, convention-center host, chief security officer and pallbearer. Despite competition from corporate behemoths like Google, Apple and Microsoft, Zoom jumped out in front of the video pack, catapulting from 10 million daily meeting participants in December to a staggering 300 million in April. Zoom became a verb and a prefix, a defining syllable of a socially distant era. As his company’s valuation soared, Yuan crashed into the Forbes billionaires list.

Zoom’s software was released in 2013, promoting a free basic service for different-size organisations along with many paid levels. Although many other startups relied heavily on free goods to cause widespread saturation, Zoom targeted modest school and company networks that would pay year after year for subscriptions.

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Startup

3 Social Media Strategies Which Small Firms Can Use to Revive Their Business Amid COVID-19 Outbreak

Social media Marketing
Social media Marketing (Photo Credits: Wikimedia Commons)

Mumbai, November 10: The coronavirus pandemic has affected everyone across the globe and small businesses are the worst hit. Businesses have been severely affected due to the coronavirus induced lockdown. However, with the opening up of the economy, things are getting better.

Small firms, therefore, need to draw out a proper plan and a strategy which will help them move forward and tide through the difficult times. They will have to keep in mind to use the resources in hand wisely and devise strategies which will reap the maximum results.

We bring to you three cost-effective social media strategies which you can use to revive your business:

The coronavirus pandemic has taught us the importance of technology. At a time when the entire world was shut down, it was technology which kept things running.

  1. Have a website: Start a website giving details to the customers about your business. There should be a contact us and a feedback page, which will help you get in touch with your probable customers. Now use this link on all your social media handles. This will be the face of your brand in the online world.
  2. Have a strong social media presence: If you have been thinking to start a Facebook page or an Instagram page for your business, our advice is DON’T DELAY. These social media platforms are a great way for small firms to promote their business and get in touch with people who are looking out for them.

    In today’s age, you need to start a page on all the social media platforms and can’t think of which one will be more beneficial to you. Remember to populate your page at least three times a week. This will help your customers to remember you.

  3. Be Human: Remember one thing that customers like to interact with humans. So your posts should also have a humanely touch. Don’t ignore any queries from your customers on your social media page. Attention should be given on how to make your customers feel special.

Today social media has become an important part of all our lives, and this is the reason, why you can’t afford to ignore this space. People today spend a good amount of their time on social media and this is where you need to target your probable customers.

Categories
MSME

Credit Guarantee Scheme: Banks Sanction Rs 1.86 Lakh Cr to 50 Lakh MSMEs Impacted by Slowdown Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

New Delhi, October 17: The Finance Ministry announced that banks have sanctioned loans of about Rs 1.86 lakh crore to 50 lakh business units under the Rs 3-lakh crore Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for the MSME sector, those who have been affected by a slowdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to a report by PTI, over 27 lakh MSME units have received about Rs 1,32,246 crore till September 29.

Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme is part of the fiscal component of the Rs 20-lakh crore Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package that was announced to lessen the stress caused by the lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic.

The scheme will be applicable to all loans sanctioned under GECL facility during the period from the date of announcement of the scheme to October 31 or till the amount of Rs 3 lakh crore is sanctioned under GECL, whichever is earlier.

Categories
Startup

COVID-19 Impact: 15% Startups Halt Operations, 44% Have Cash Runway For Less Than 6 Months

Startup
Startup (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

Mumbai, October 14: The coronavirus pandemic has affected across sectors causing job losses and business being shut. According to an IANS report, the impact of COVID-19 has been severe on the Indian startup as 15 percent of the startups have halted operations.

According to a report by TIE Delhi-NCR and Zinnov, 44 per cent of start-ups have cash runway for less than 6 months, 41 per cent of startups have been impacted negatively while 52 per cent are struggling to raise capital.

In addition to this, there has been a decline in the overall pace of investments, especially in April to June 2020. To add to it, there has been a 48 per cent year on year decline in funding and 37 per cent year on year decline in the number of deals in the quarter.

The decline was even more prominent in seed and early-stage investments. The coronavirus also affected early and late-stage funding. According to the report, there was more than 50 percent decrease in early and late-stage total funding in Q2 20 as compared to Q1 20.

Categories
Business motivation Finance

India Emerges As Top Choice for Future Investments in the Next 2-3 Years: Survey

New Delhi, October 14: Business in India that have been severely affected by COVID-19 this year, have been limping back to normalcy over the past one month or so. Reports inform that India is believed to emerge as one of the top three choices for overseas investments in the next 2-3 years, a CII-EY FDI survey report showed on Tuesday. According to the survey, India is the first choice for future investments for more than two-thirds of the MNC respondents. The CII-EY FDI survey also showed that 25 percent of the respondents, who represent non-Indian HQ MNCs, view India as the first choice for future investments.

The report said more than 80 percent of all the respondents and 71 percent of the non-Indian headquartered respondents plan to make investments globally in the next 2-3 years. Moreover about 30 percent of companies are planning to invest more than $500 million. About 50 percent of the respondents see India among the top three economies or leading manufacturing destinations of the world by 2025.

According to a report by IANS, the respondents have picked market potential, skilled workforce and political stability as the top three reasons to make India their favoured destination. The other key factors which contribute to the attractiveness of India as an investment destination include cheap labour availability, policy reforms, and availability of raw materials, the report said.

“Recent reforms in the country such as corporate tax cuts, ease of doing business measures, simplification of labour laws, FDI reforms, and focus on human capital have emerged as the top drivers for fresh investments,” the report said. “Non-Indian HQ MNCs have also opined that major investment in infrastructure and 100 Smart cities as well as financial sector reforms will also help establishing India as a favourable destination for FDI,” it said.

The survey brought out some key recommendations sought by the respondents. The report said infrastructure development, faster clearances, and proper implementation of the improved labour laws and labour availability as the top three issues that the companies want the government to focus on, followed by R&D and innovation, and tax reforms. “In terms of trade policy reforms, investors would like to see a faster turnaround time for exports and imports, improved cargo handling, and trade facilitation measures to be in place”, it added.