How businesses changed the pandemic into opportunity?

This article is basically regarding the period we all faced in a name of COVID 19, and how it affected the business structures, plans, and models all over the world.

What COVID-19 was?

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-oilCoV-2 virus. Most people infected with the virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. However, some will become seriously ill and require medical attention. Older people and those with underlying medical conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, or cancer are more likely to develop serious illness.

During the COVID pandemic, the entire world came to a halt for an extended period of time, posing various challenges to businesses such as increased demand, reduced production, or long-term shutdown. These challenges made businesses change their business models, their strategies to survive and to make their services available to their consumers in the easiest and most cost-effective way possible.

Challenges businesses faced during covid

Let’s take a look at how businesses are affected by the pandemic:

• All businesses around the globe are feeling the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19). Leaders were navigating a wide range of issues that were interrelated and spanned from keeping the employees as well as customers safe, reorienting operations, and navigating complex government support programs.
• In the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses are led to close, resulting in an unparalleled disruption of commerce in various industries.

• Retailers as well as brands have faced several challenges, for example, health and safety, the workforce, the supply chain, cash flow, consumer demand, sales, and marketing.
• However, navigating these challenges will not assure a promising future at all. Once we get through this pandemic, we will develop in a different world in comparison to the one before.
• Several markets, especially those that are in tourism and hospitality, no longer exist. All the operations in an organisation are intended to prioritise and optimise spending or postpone those tasks that will not add value in the current environment.
• Newly started businesses have stopped indefinite hiring. Simultaneously, online communication, entertainment, and shopping are seeing unprecedented development.

Development after the pandemic

In some situations, businesses get some good things due to this COVID pandemic, that are given below:

• Rather than shutting down against the pandemic that has changed the daily life and exacerbated inequalities, individuals and businesses embrace the unexpected in creative ways, some distilleries started producing alcohol-based hand sanitizers at a cheap price; and some started selling healthy foods and services via e-commerce. New opportunities as well as business models are developing.
• During pandemic, in order to change business operating models, services, products as well as organizational structures to acquire a competitive advantage digital transformation has been described in various ways, but usually it is the use of information and communication technologies with benefits to change.
• Digital transformation is basically aimed to improve an entity by triggering major changes through information, communication, computing and connectivity technologies.
• Companies have started a new approach to working; online or virtual, which is commonly known as work from home or remote working. It can be used to accomplish most of their operations remotely or virtually without considering productivity or quality.
• Several businesses also started to provide their products and services through e-commerce, in which they included features for consumers’ health and safety like no-contact delivery, drop-in facility, or giving consumers safety information about the individual going to deliver.

Adopting digitalisation

E-Wallets or Digital Wallets

Basically, E-Wallets or Digital Wallets are one of the easiest and most modern solutions or ways of making payments without any problem directly from one bank account to another. E-Wallets are referred to as a financial transaction application that may be operated through a mobile device.

The most common five applications used for E-Wallets:

1. PayPal
2. Google Pay
3. Paytm
4. Apple Pay
5. Samsung Pay

Net Banking

A facility that works to provide several kinds of services related to transactions as well as other bank-related concerns through a computer or smartphone. Using this method is convenient for users as it does not require them to visit their bank to perform normal banking operations.

Below are some of the common features banks usually provide to users in net banking facilities:

• 24*7 access to all banking services such as balance updates and transaction history
• A safe environment for several banking transactions; e.g., bill payments and fund transfers.
• Users have a distinct banking ID and password, and can use net banking for services related to debit/credit cards, when required.

How digitalisation helped businesses?

During the period of the COVID-19 crisis, e-Wallet and net banking merchants have directed their focus on the disruptions during payment due to know-your-customer (KYC) norms as well as the growth of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

According to studies and surveys, it is shown that due to the COVID-19 crisis, the average transaction value through digital wallets or net banking has been maximised with a huge number of users maintaining balances in their bank or digital wallet accounts..

Final thoughts

It has been clear that the pandemic was an opportunity for people and businesses to learn, understand, and implement digital services and new ways of working or make their business models robust enough to survive in such circumstances.

By Jatindeep Singh

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