How are small businesses opening up after the pandemic?

Response to the pandemic situation will be different for large and small companies. For small companies that do not have the luxury of providing employees with health insurance, large offices to maintain social distancing and options of providing other standard SoP’s, it is wise to stay put a little longer and see how the situation plays out before taking a decision. The stakes are high as well as the risk. A single employee contacting the disease can again lead to the operation taking a hit and other employees getting infected.

Small businesses can lie low for the time being and restart activities at the beginning of the New Year on the safer side. With the virus curve going down in many places and hope of a vaccine round the corner,  that would be the ideal time to put the foot on the pedal again and start pursuing customers as aggressively as before. From now till then maintaining a status quo and doing work at a reduced output can help to stay afloat. This can hold good for both the manufacturing and services sector. The services sector is in a better position to continue work at a reduced output because ‘work from home’ is much easier for this sector whether it is software development, consulting, designing etc. For a manufacturing unit this becomes much tougher because production can only happen from a physical location and it is much harder to maintain social distancing norms in such a unit. Businesses that have direct customer interaction will be at a greater risk at re-opening than those that have remote customers.

Some of the key factors that we have identified for re-opening of small businesses are listed below:

·         Arrangement of restarting capital – This is the foremost thing that will be required to make the wheels move again. Without adequate capital, it will be difficult to manage operational expenses because very much every organization has been cash-flow deficit during these times.

 ·         Plan for the next step of the journey- Creating a short business plan or roadmap is essential during these times. Businesses have been ravaged so a new roadmap to restart activities outlining investments required, critical activities to restart, customer connect plan needs to be in-place before opening up fully.

 ·         Staffing right- During the pandemic period, organizational staffing may have been disrupted. Due to these circumstances there may have been layoffs, furlough, reduced salaries etc. The management needs to take a very pragmatic view of the situation with the right staffing model after reopening. It is possible that an existing position can wait to be filled-up on a later date and more urgent positions needs to be filled-up fast.

 ·         Revitalize - A Deloitte report focuses on revitalizing the business. The revitalizing will depend on digitally enhancing your business. The digital enhancement will revolve around digital marketing, offering more services using available tools and technologies, reducing dependency on manpower and adopting more and more of technology as we move forward.

 Apart from the points mentioned above, there are some standard operational procedures that many companies are following and serve as a good benchmark for restarting operations.

·         Doing shift duties in such a way that the same person doesn't stay in office for a long period of time is a good way to keep the work rolling without exposing the staff to too much work.

·         The staff members should be rotated so that not everyone has to come to office everyday.

·         Sanitizing the office everyday is a good step to safeguard the health of your employees.

The restart should be a gradual one so as not to put pressure on employees. As per a US Chamber website guideline, I have picked up some more additional points to wrap up the post.

·         Communicate evolving changes in a timely, transparent manner. Let people know what's happening and why. If appropriate, give credit to the employee or customer who inspired the change so your audience knows you're listening to them.

·         Continue mapping out your road back to normal. Normalcy is not going to happen overnight. In fact, "normal" for you moving forward may look very different from what it looked like pre-pandemic. Your journey back to the volume of customers you had before may take time, but all your business can do is keep learning, growing and evolving as new information becomes available.

 Once things become closer to normal, start with other normal entertainment such as birthday celebrations, festivals and weekend gatherings. This will help employees get back their normal tempo and contribute to organizational growth as they did before the pandemic stuck.