A lot of articles and blogs have been written, suggesting what small businesses need to do to survive in this pandemic. The social media- Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, have been showing a number of tips and strategies to show what the business must do to survive in the highly struggling economy.

Apart from all this information flowing all over the internet, you need to reimagine your business from the point of views of both strategy and business model. The task will require a complete shift in your thoughts about the business before the pandemic as compared to what the customers need today. Here is a view of how the businesses are now completely readjusting and pivoting their products and services along with their business model.

Texas Roadhouse: This chain of dine-in restaurants have changed their business model. The restaurant was pretty famous for its grilled steaks. The business model changed from the inviting people to have the grilled steak to selling the home steak-grilling kits. The customers can now grill their own steak. The restaurant also offered the takeaway option where the customers only stopped to pick up their favourite meals.

Bookfield Properties: The company has signed a deal where it is using the empty parking lots of malls as a drive-in theatre. Several malls across the UK have empty parking lots due to cut in the mall traffic. Kilburn Live is working with the company as the entertainment partner in at least five cities to generate revenue. These companies are here to offer public entertainment options in a safe manner.

Walks: It is a tour based company which was severely affected by the travel restrictions imposed by the governments have changed their business model to generate revenue again. The company changed its business model to offer the same services in an innovative and secure way. The company is still offering tours to some of the most popular travel destinations. The customers can book tours from the safety of their homes. The business allows the travellers to walk with the tour guide who is “live” with them and explains them the cultural history and visual dynamics.

Mr. Holmes Bakehouse: Founder of Mr. Holmes Bakehouse Aaron Caddel was trying to think about how to stay in business and keep his staff employed. The business had lost most of the customers. Caddel also noticed that people had developed a great interest in home baking activities which was causing a shortage in ingredients such as yeast and flour. In response, he decided to change his business to supply home baking kits. The business never had an e-commerce background, but it had an immense Instagram following and a strong commercial supply chain. He converted all these elements to sell the home baking kits and generate good revenue.

Ideal: Owing is a physical jewellery store to make business was one of the greatest challenges faced by several jewellery outlets. One such business, Ideal converted their business model almost overnight from the physical store to a virtual one. The business converted as an e-commerce model very quickly adopting the method of live streaming. The sales representative became live broadcasters, where each one of them were managing their own live stream store as a type franchise.

Ideal has joined hands with a retail software provider to develop a mini platform with one of the most popular WeChat app. The company is using the new platform as the virtual warehouse where the sales associates are able to share the company’s warehouse inventory all over the country.

So, you need to conduct some shifts in the business as the pandemic continues in your small business.

1. Analyse what all you can do and how you can do it.
2. Understand the values of your business and its services and the ways in which your business can transform to deliver them to the customers.
3. Observe the change in trends caused by the COVID 19 across businesses and see if they can be leveraged in your own business operations.
4. Observe your customers see what all they need which no other business is providing or can provide.
5. Loom for business with whom you can partner with and offer some value-added services to the customers.

Overall, a change in the business process is a wise option to go if the traditional methods are not working out to generate the expected revenue.

Source – Forbes