Lessons Every Business Can Learn From The Pandemic

lessons every business can learn from the pandemic

When the pandemic first hit, no one predicted the significant effects and the extent to which it would impact everyday life. The arrival of the pandemic brought enormous changes for businesses and took a devastating toll on many companies. Business owners across all industries faced difficult decisions, and unprecedented disruption in 2020 as the sheer scale of the situation emerged. This meant many customer-facing businesses were forced to shut their doors, and almost all companies needed to make an overnight transition to working from home. There is no doubt this unexpected situation had a far-reaching impact on companies worldwide.

It is estimated that there were 200,000 additional business closures in the United States during the first year of the pandemic, which may not come as too much of a shock given the scale of the disruption. If your business managed to survive this difficult time, the experience was likely a steep learning curve and a time of significant stress. But, as life returns to some degree of normality, you may be wondering where your business goes from here. Reflecting on your company before COVID and how it has evolved during the pandemic is essential and should help provide you with many lessons that you can learn from. Here are some of the main lessons that many businesses have learned during the pandemic that can help guide them toward future success:

Remote Working Actually Works

Pre-COVID, many businesses were skeptical about remote working and reluctant to allow their employees the opportunity to work from home. However, this mindset changed overnight when remote working suddenly became the only option to keep businesses open. While switching to remote working without preparation was undoubtedly a stressful process, many companies adapted well, and many employees willingly accepted the transition to remote working.

Now teams are able to return to the office, you may be under pressure to allow remote working to continue and to offer this as an option for your team. After employees were happy to adapt to working from home, it seems only reasonable to continue offering this option to your staff. Putting a hybrid working arrangement in place or offering a flexible approach to working from home is a benefit many employees will appreciate, so it is well worth considering.

Need For Robust Systems

While remote working was mostly effective, one area that may have been lacking for your business during the pandemic is the right software. Using software that is not right for the task can be frustrating for you and your team. Having robust software systems is essential to keep your business running efficiently, and during the pandemic, this became even more crucial. It is almost impossible to keep your company running at its best and ensure your team is working efficiently without the right systems.

Having team members based in multiple locations presents a unique challenge and increases the need to use specialist field service software. Choosing software specifically designed to meet the needs of businesses with teams operating across different locations is crucial. But before you commit to buying field service management software, it is essential to carry out research to ensure you make the right choice. Taking a look at What Is Field Service Management Software? | An Expert Guide will help you to determine the best systems to suit the needs of your business.

Once you have found software that enables your team to collaborate across different locations seamlessly, you should start to see benefits pretty quickly. With the right field management software, you will be able to allocate tasks with ease and monitor the progress in real-time. Managing productivity and business efficiency will be so much easier when you have the best software to facilitate this.

Clear Processes Are Essential

Maintaining best practices across different tasks becomes a challenge when you have employees that are miles apart. With team members in various locations, it becomes harder to monitor standards and more difficult for employees to reach out for help when needed. Using clear business processes becomes essential when you have a team that works across different areas. Having tasks performed consistently is vital to maintaining standards and ensuring that your company provides high-quality products and services. But, without clear business processes, this is difficult to achieve and can lead to discrepancies in quality and an increase in errors. To minimize inconsistencies and ensure every customer receives the same high-quality products and services, writing clear business process documents is essential.

Writing business process documents in collaboration with your team will help to ensure that you cover everything that is needed and that all the information is concise and up-to-date. Communicating the updated business process documents to your team to ensure that everyone understands them will help to ensure that all team members have a clear understanding of the best way to perform their tasks. Your business process documents will help to eliminate errors and inconsistencies and provide your team members with information that they can refer back to whenever needed.

Importance Of Cybersecurity

Keeping your business systems secure to protect them from cybercriminals is always a crucial task. However, since the COVID pandemic, it has become more vital than ever to keep your data protected and to strengthen your business’s cybersecurity measures. The quick transition to working remotely with little preparation left many companies exposed to cybercriminals.

Cybercrimes increased during the pandemic as working from home compromised the security of some business systems. Changes such as employees using their own devices for work and communication via online video calls left businesses especially vulnerable to cybercrime. The distraction created by the pandemic also provided the perfect opportunity for cybercriminals to take advantage of security oversights and use these to their advantage. Unfortunately, many businesses fell victim to cybercrimes such as ransomware attacks and phishing scams during this time. Learning from the vulnerabilities that occurred during the pandemic and focusing on strengthening your company’s cybersecurity measures will minimize the chances of your business falling victim to a cybercrime.

With over 9 years of search marketing experience, Sandra is cross skilled between PPC and SEO. Her experience in search spans across different verticals including Technology, Retail, Travel & Automotive.