By Alyanna Therese Tagamolila

Sooner or later — and everyone wishes that it is much much sooner — the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic is bound to end. With this, business that were able to survive and thrive throughout the pandemic will have the opportunity to restructure their business and their business processes without the adjustments made during the spread of the highly transmissible disease. Yes, we are aware that in the Philippines it looks like the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. But, a good quality of a business owner and entrepreneur is to always be prepared and one step ahead – and this article helps you achieve this.

Post-COVID-19 will be the time of economic resurgence. It puts back government funding that has been reappropriated for COVID-19 efforts temporarily back to its designated allocation, gives ordinary citizens economic freedom once more to spend without the fear of disease and the costs to treat it, and resumes the operations of several companies that has had to close down or reduce staffing this pandemic; giving back jobs to the jobless and lifting the Philippine economy as a whole. Now, as a business owner: it is our duty to take an active part in this economic resurgence. How do we do this?

Assess: Retain or Dispose

During the pandemic, your business has probably had to adapt in one way or another. Add payment options that are contactless such as payments through GCash or Bank transfer, open up a delivery option or even cut down on the products or services you offer. After the pandemic, you should assess these adjustments and decide whether the policies and protocols you put in place still give your customers their economic freedom and spending power as well as whether it is an option with maximum revenue opportunity for you. If yes, retain! If no, quickly dispose and add new processes that will give customers their spending power and give you maximum revenue.

Stay open at the very least – and expand or open for franchising at most

As a business owner, the best way to help stimulate the economic flow of your community is to stay open. Staying open means there is a continuous market-consumer exchange and cash-flow is continuous; it is the least we can do to help our economy without having to sacrifice too much of ourselves for the sake of it. However, IF possible and if your business has enough financial security to do so, expand and franchise! Be the reason that economic activity increases in other communities as well. Empower communities by empowering your business!

Plan for your business’ future

Let’s face it, this pandemic was the plotline only seen in dystopian movies, something that we honestly thought was never going to happen. With this, the next thing to do is to plan ahead. Secure the stability of your business so that if another crisis results in economic regression or stagflation, your business will survive. Find Investors, branch out and provide other services/products, Increase brand loyalty and establish permanence. Reach out to business experts to know more about how you can make your business crisis-proof. We are better now after we have been through, and we can help each other never have to be this severely affected again.

We business play a role in society that many realize are big and significant – we make up almost a third of economic flow in our country and have a duty to both our internals (our employees, the people around us, investors etc) and our community. Let us do our part when the pandemic ends, let us do what we can to rise above what happened and uplift our business, our community, and our country.