While it has been common to read news about businesses shutting down and losing revenue, it’s also inspiring to read about those that are thriving.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had announced early on that the spread of novel coronavirus outbreak in the country is imminent; and that it was only a question of when it will happen. Many proactive business entrepreneurs took stock of their mitigation plans and immediately devised alternative plans.

While others waited and held on to hopes that the novel coronavirus crisis will just be another case of SARS, H1N1 or Ebola that did not greatly affect the country. One thing that many people had overlooked was that the country’s current president does not believe in making decisions based on scientific information.

In local governments like those in the San Francisco Bay Area, public health officials supported by public health experts in their communities, declared the need to put their regions under lockdown to prevent the spread of the contagion. To which, mayors and later, governors did their part by supporting their public health official’s call for a lockdown. Not a few entrepreneurs realized too late that a lockdown also meant shutting down of businesses engaged in providing or trading nonessential goods and services.

Nonetheless, some others lost no time in making changes or taking proactive steps to keep their business afloat in the midst of the global pandemic.

Proactive Steps Taken by Entrepreneurs Who Continue to Thrive During the Health Crisis

Some took note of how China’s neighboring countries were dealing with the outbreak, and what small businesses were doing in order to face the challenges they were facing.

Most business organizations in countries like Malaysia and Singapore, immediately appealed to landlords of commercial properties, to defer collection of rental payments in light of their diminished capacity to generate sales. Many commercial space renters in the U.S. put forward the same appeal to their landlords and property managers in preparation for the inevitable.

Other American businesses took to improving and enhancing their online stores and delivery services. Some others were quick to devise plans that entailed shifting to products regarded as highly usable during a pandemic, such as hand sanitizers, alcohol and disinfectants.

 

Instead of making car stain removers, one entrepreneur shifted to manufacturing alcohol and hand sanitizers. Another example is one where production of visors and caps halted to give way to the production of face masks.

Many developers were quick to release new educational and other child-friendly apps designed to keep children as schools were the firsts to close down. Not a few, simply applied financial management strategies hand in hand with the principles of crisis management in running their business.