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COVID-19 vs Business. Maybe we should have been better prepared?
https://www.whatjobs.com/news/business-news/covid-19-vs-business-maybe-we-should-have-been-better-prepared
By Hugh Fort in Business News, posted January 7, 2021
Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 businesses around the globe have taken a hit. COVID-19 originating in Wuhan, China spread rapidly across the world taking the lives of many in its wake. The virus also took away livelihood from many people as countries went into lockdowns isolating people in their homes. This has resulted in damage to the global economy as well as a large drop in the employment rate.
Effects
Although there has been a lot of discussion regarding larger organizations it must be remembered that the most affected have been small and medium businesses. One must realize those small businesses are the backbone of every country without which the economy of that country would be crippled.
Due to the spread of this virus, the vast majority of the countries went into lockdowns and put in place regulations. All of this was necessary in order to contain the virus and slow down its spread. But this also resulted in a large amount of these small businesses completely or temporarily shutting down. In the US businesses which have less than 500 employees account for approximately half the labor force of the whole country. These small businesses lack the cash reserves to be able to handle a month-long interruption.
According to some sources, the industries most affected by the outbreak have been the service-based industries. Among these service-based industries hospitals and travel, industries have been impacted the most by COVID-19. The majority of small businesses have claimed to experience a loss in revenue since the spread of the virus.
The loss of revenue has been experienced by most of the businesses and industries to some extent. The supply chains for businesses have been either slowed down or in some cases stopped completely. As a matter of fact, global supply chains around the world have been struggling since the initial outbreak in china. The businesses have had to adapt to new circumstances and obstacles.
The spread of COVID-19 and the lockdowns put in place to counter it have also resulted in a massive boost in technology usage. Technology such as video calling and video conferencing have been utilised by a vast majority of industries, foremost by the education industry.
Government actions
The governments around the world, although not all of them, have tried to help these businesses survive. Although it would have been ideal for pro-active measures to be in place for scenarios like the one the world is in, it has been very apparent that was not the case.
Learning from COVID-19
We have seen how businesses and governments alike were not as prepared for this pandemic as they should have been. But hopefully, this would be a turning point for the better as we learn from this pandemic and its effects both as individuals and as organizations. New measures need to be put in place to counter such scenarios. Major powers around the world are determined not to let something like this happen again but we should also try as individuals to learn and better ourselves.
