COVID-19 is still long ways from being contained and there is no aspect of the economy that it hasn’t had an impact on. This is true for the world and especially for our own country India, ours is an economy still powered by agriculture but right up there with it are small industries and businesses. Small businesses react to economic development differently, whether it’s going up or scaling down. With the coronavirus, the situation isn’t any different, although they’re heavily impacted and on the brink of closing down- in their own way the small businesses are trying their best to cope with the situation and make the best of what they have in store for them. That being said, let’s look at five tips for business management tips for small business owners that can help these businesses come out on top after this struggle ends.
First off, have the right mindset-
These are trying times and keeping your employees and your own self-calm is important, people will need someone to be the leader and look up to for help and support. You need to reassure the employees and your close ones that you can make it through this together and if the situation calls for it, you need to be willing to give your employees flexible work hours. Take all the safety precautions and make sure you maintain a safe workplace.
Socialize and build your network. It is through good contacts that many dipping businesses come out of a ditch and handle economic stress better. You don’t need to be physically present to build your network, we live in the internet age and social media has one of the greatest impacts on the marketability and appeal of a business you can socialize and grow your business and build a solid network to depend upon by maintaining a strong and well structured online presence. You might find people to collaborate with and even new customers and markets to dive into. It is a very good campaign to run, now that we’re all in lockdown.
Reconsider your inventory management scheme, it is a time where supply chains are breaking down. You can’t compromise a lot of resources for the sake of quantity because while the demand might be high for your product right now, the procurement of raw materials is very difficult if not entirely impossible at the moment. The country is in lockdown, international travel is banned and even trading and e-commerce have come to a stop. Being frugal can genuinely help your case and keep the work flowing for a while before you run out.
Conduct research. Time’s ripe to run surveys and market research, get more information to get more insight into what the customers want and then maybe customize your products or introduce new products according to their needs. Another thing to question right now is the pricing, the world is filled with people in a pinch right now, everyone is suffering economically so discounts won’t only help your case but will also leave people grateful- you never know how desperate the next guy is. Competition might perish if you’re able to gather more customers this way and undercut pricing for rivals.
Lastly, take each day as it comes. It sounds counterintuitive, yes, there needs to be a plan. In fact, without a good long term strategy, you are more likely to fail and that’s not the point here. The idea here is- be flexible with it. Do not spend your time building an intricately detailed plan and keep adding and removing bullets to it but never really executing it. What you need to do right now is act. Imperfect action, in this case, is better than inaction and so think about a plan, consider your options and keep it adaptive and take every day as it goes, once you’ve completed the day ask yourself what could be improved in your game plan and take a step back to observe things from a neutral standpoint, revise and re-engage.
Hopefully, the small industry in India can band together and pull through this catastrophe. The road to financial recovery is long and we won’t be back in business anytime soon in 2020. Persistence is the name of the game and those that will keep making conscious and well thought out decisions will surely make it out of this outbreak at their former glory if not stronger.
