2020 has been an extremely difficult year for business of all shapes and sizes in the vast majority of industries and fields of specialism. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic has seen countless companies struggle as the result of a number of pandemic related issues. First and foremost, many face to face businesses had to close their doors to customers. Offices had to see their workers take on remote roles and work from home. But beyond this, there has been mass unemployment due to countless businesses collapsing, which has resulted in huge steps towards a recession. People either don’t have the money to pay for non essential goods (due to job loss, reduced working hours or reduced salaries) or aren’t willing to spend money as they are concerned about job security and would rather put their earnings into savings, just in case. But it is possible for many businesses to stay afloat as long as they manage their operations in a sensible and effective manner. Perhaps one thing that we’ve learned throughout all of this is that your business needs to be as self-sufficient as possible to get by. Let’s take a look at a few different areas to highlight this!

Staff

If you often rely on freelance workers to get by, chances are you might be struggling right now. Many freelancers can’t get sufficient work to tide themselves over right now, with many finding that their regular clients can’t afford to continue providing work, or that their frequent clients’ companies have collapsed. Many are turning to welfare state benefits, as they simply can’t get by on the scarce work available. This isn’t a problem if you have in-house or remote employed staff. These individuals will be contracted to work for you as long as you can provide them the hours. This will ensure that all cogs in your business keep turning while you are still able to operate.

Supplies

Now, we haven’t hit a stage where we suddenly don’t have electricity, gas, water or other fuel and services. But we have discovered the importance of ensuring that your business has everything it needs to run at all times possible. People are less patient right now and you’re going to have to work hard to live up to customers’ expectations to deliver a service that will keep them happy rather than disappointing them during already difficult times. So, make sure that you have backups for all of the supplies that you need to maintain operations. Make sure you have a backup energy supply for your manufacturing process to ensure that goods can be made and shipped out to customers in the comfort of their own homes without delay. Make sure you have a backup water supply to create your goods if your main supply cuts out. You can look at this one as an example. Being able to continue operations, even in unprecedented times is essential.

Savings

This may sound odd, as we tend to associate savings with personal pursuits, but businesses should have savings too. This will help you to get by through short periods of time where you may be making losses. Rather than getting into debt and potentially having to close your business’ doors, you can temporarily draw from emergency funds to keep things in action until sales and profits return to normal.

As you can see, self sufficiency is extremely important for any business’ success! Hopefully, focusing on some of the above areas will help you stay afloat!