COVID-19 BUSINESS IMPACTS
Adaptation Strategies during Covid-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 Business Impacts by SNS Cambodia
Since early 2020 till March 2021 COVID-19 pandemic has prolonged over a year, it has changed the way we work, and these changes are permeating far beyond the peak of the contagion. As we navigate these uncharted waters, we find ourselves dealing simultaneously with a HEALTH, DIGITAL and ECONOMIC CRISIS.
From recent survey results released by UNIDO Cambodia on THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE PRIVATE SECTOR, (involved 227 enterprises from various industries) majority of the surveyed enterprises stated that they still face financial problems and decline in revenues among other problems. Among many insightful findings of the survey described in this report, there were some key concluding highlights below:
Business sector: Although the largest number of respondents were from large enterprises, based on this survey, MSMEs remain the most affected enterprises among all especially those from accommodations and food services sector.
Revenues: This recurring impact has led to a sudden decline in revenues. The decrease in revenues is found more severe (89%) than in round 1 (69%) mainly SME enterprises in accommodation and food service sector. Although, the decreases in revenue appear to be more balanced across all sizes of the surveyed enterprises but micro and medium enterprises, on average, tend to anticipate a much larger decline in revenue than small and large enterprises.
Financial issue: While this follow-up survey revealed some gradual improvement on financial issue, the most significant financial problems remain unchanged from the previous survey. Those included staff wages and social security (60%), fixed costs (50%) and payments of taxes (46%).
Employment: Due to the ongoing pandemic, more than 30% of the firms surveyed expected that their workforce is unable to come to work and among that more than 50% are female employees. These were enterprises from accommodation and food service sector followed by education. Similar result to the previous survey, staff layoffs remain the issue and this has impacted both male and female employees.
Learning from the survey results, it’s revealed various companies has impacts differently and at different level, and you need to know more how COVID-19 pandemic impacts to the businesses, here is the point – first we need to understand the cycle time of this virus and the counter measures following the cycle time of its development, according to the study conducted by experts they advised a Framework for Recovery “Resilience – Realignment – Recovery”. The key points in this framework it’s for every business leader must have clear objective & know what to do at each phase; but the challenge is about the timeframe of each phase we difficult to predict and possibilities of repeated cycle is high. However, here are the tips from expert advices for you:
Resilience
The objective in this phase is to Keep people safe, healthy and well informed. And below key action points to be implemented:- Activate Business Continuity Plan
- Focus on employee health and safety
- Move to adaptive working (distributed working and split teams)
Realignment
Objective No.1 at this phase, it’s to keep people working while managing cost carefully. And below key action points to be implemented in between Resilience & Realignment:
- Support people managers
- Realignment of costs
- Fix technical issues
- Observe “new [community] rules”
- Management of C&B costs to attain financial stability
Objective No.2 at this phase, it’s to find out what we can learn from the challenges we are facing. And below key action points to be implemented in between Realignment & Recovery:
- Start to invest in new growth opportunities?
- Re-organize to embed learning from disruption?
- Adjust work to fit smaller teams?
- Review performance and rewards strategy
- Restore lowered EVP as a result of pay cuts and layoffs
- Identify staff augmentation needs to fill gaps in critical areas
- Redesign jobs for permanent flexibility
Reinvention
The main objective in this phase is to fully re-enter the physical world and accelerate. And below key action points to be implemented:
- Act with caution to avoid another outbreak?
- Support people going back to work?
- Find new ways to reach customers?
- Digital transformation to gain cost and resource efficiencies
- Broaden employee skills and establish strategic partnerships for future talent brokerage.
This framework for Recovery could be helpful and adoptable for various businesses, by understanding your company situation and internal process then matching it to this framework, you will be able to determine very clear objectives and key action points for your own company. With proper & effective implementation of your action plan, it could help you to survive business throughout COVID-19 pandemic period and be able to fully re-enter the physical world or new normal and accelerate, as it is now the light at the end of tunnel is appearing with availabilities of Vaccine in most of countries around the world, including Cambodia.
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