Some organisations may not be able to recover from COVID-19

The COVID-19 outbreak has brought a wave of disruption across multiple business sectors. Many companies have had to adapt to the concept of remote working, as entire work forces transition to working from home.

For those more adversely impacted, partial or complete shutdown of business operations have also been implemented.

The longer-term concern, however, is the ability of companies to resume operations once economies begin to recovery from COVID-19.

Restarting a business is much harder than shutting one down, cautioned the Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRI).

“When the economy reopens, it won’t go back to how it was all at once,” said Chloe Demrovsky, chief executive of DRI, a non-profit organisation. “Our habits may have changed together with the width of our wallets.”

Highlighting that small firm may not have in place the robust contingency plans and strong risk management programmes as highly-regulated large businesses, she suggested that many small business owners may have to become entrepreneurs again to survive.

For all businesses, some things may change forever, as Demrovsky explained, “Conferences and large events will likely be cancelled or sparsely attended for a long time.

“This may be the nail in the coffin for shared workspaces and open office floor plans as we all now realise the importance of walls.”

In preparation for a post COVID-19 world, DRI advised businesses to plan for measures such as fewer hours, staggered shifts and more shift changes for staff.

For retailers, they should be preparing for more distance between customers, individually packaged food with no samples or testers, extra and visible cleaning, and protection in the shape of masks, gloves and temperature checks for employees.