Long Term Impact of Pandemic on Businesses

Definitely, there ought to be some changes in the post-Covid world and for businesses to survive, it is imperative to adapt as per the requirements and needs of the modern world. It is of immense importance to gauge the needs of the audience and offer them value-based information or services. Digital Transformation has been the keyword for the past decade but it won’t be wrong to say that it has caught steam since the past year.

It’s been more than one year into the pandemic, then why is it that some companies are scaling up the chart, whereas others aren’t even able to sustain themselves. The reason being that some of the companies have or are successfully implementing digital transformation and have adapted platform-based business models, whereas others are left behind as they haven’t yet climbed onto the wagon and will eventually cease to exist. It has been a seesaw ride, where many companies lost out to low consumer demand which was a result of COVID-19, on the other hand, there are various companies that were successfully able to leverage digitalization and digital transformation and further solidified their position.

As per a report by McKinsey’s US Digital Sentiment Survey, the readiness in adopting digital transformation has been shown by the retail industry, especially grocery and apparel. These sectors were able to enhance their digital adoption rates by an impressive 100% and 40%, respectively.

Other industries like the beauty, banking and healthcare sectors have shown similar trends, where they too are adopting their practices in sync with the growing demands of technology adoption. Post Covid the shape of an organizations recovery will depend on how willing they are to undergo digital transformation and are successfully able to adopt platform-based business models. There are established guidelines and rules, as well as established best practice standards to ensure success in the said area.

Post discussing the impact of adopting digital transformation, we shall now see some areas where the pandemic has left an indelible mark.

Post Pandemic trends which are here to stay

1. Sanitation- Definitely, a sector which has gained more attention post Covid-19 and that is rightly so. Clean businesses have always caught the attention of customers and post pandemic sanitation will be the hot topic of discussion, especially travel, hospitality and healthcare industries. These sectors will the ones which will have the maximum human interaction and therefore maintaining impeccable standards shall be the utmost priority.
2. Go local- Going local has been of prime importance during the trends observed post Covid and rightly so. This is happening mainly because people are not too keen on exploring markets and would prefer items delivered at home and this is so because the pandemic has acted as a supply chain disruptor. It is here where the local manufacturers and suppliers have stepped into fulfilling the demands of the people. This will not only give a push to the local manufacturers and suppliers but also to the local economy, and most importantly it will let them scale up their operations as well as give competition to the established players, which is important for the economy to grow.
3. Virtual events- Due to the pandemic, many in-person events have been canceled or postponed and many are conducting virtual events to plug-in the gap, for instance it includes the like of Salesforce and Microsoft. It won’t be wrong to say that the virtual events are the future, atleast in the near future. It’s not only big corporations but also smaller companies which are building infrastructure to scale up and conduct virtual events, their focus being to reach out to their customers.

These are just some of the facts that we have scratched the surface off with, the pandemic has brought in many changes, some good and some bad, some which were needed and some which could have been avoided. The way world used to function pre-COVID is definitely not how it will function now, it’s always best to stay ahead of the curve and be prepared for any eventuality in these unpredictable times.