Leaving aside the big businesses, there are many small scale ones that have been functioning successfully in the UK. The SMEs (small and medium enterprises) amount to 50% of UK’s revenue and incorporate up to 40% of the labour force. The Covid19 pandemic has definitely been hard on the economy and all businesses, big and small alike have been affected. There are a few obvious challenges that businesses have had to face since March 2020 when the lockdowns began. Since then, UK businesses have been on their feet trying to deal with these challenges and re-establish their position in the market economy.
Shifting to eCommerce
Since the lockdown began last year in the month of March, everything had to be compulsorily shut down to minimize the spread of Covid19 through contact. Businesses, then had to involuntarily shift to virtual platforms. eCommerce became a rage since then as everyone started going online with their products as services. Since more people could be reached through virtual platforms and the services could be met, this is what businesses in the UK resorted to as well.
Home deliveries increased
As people could not step out, the products had to be brought to them. So essential and a few non-essential items that were allowed to be circulated, focussed more on delivering door-to-door to keep the business running and the services unhampered. In fact, home deliveries have become such a common phenomenon now that even precious items such as Lab grown diamond engagement rings are simply being ordered online to plan a proposal.
Work from home
Those who were able to make use of this provision, required their work force to work from home. Many IT businesses and those predominantly working with the aid of digital appliances like laptops and phones could manage to give full time work from home option to their staff to keep things flowing. Although it has been difficult since the schools were shut as well and so people had to work with children at home. But after a year of such a routine, we can say most of them did adjust and learn to be sufficiently productive.
Live virtual platforms
Many businesses took help of live virtual platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, etc. to conduct live sessions with customers in order to impart some training. Schools and colleges also started online classes to avoid breaks in education.
No dine-in, only take-outs.
Apart from home deliveries, restaurants started an only take-out policy to avoid crowds and continue running the business while following Covid19 safety protocols specified by the Government as well.
Disinfecting offices and conducting regular temperature checks
For those businesses that had to keep running in the offices itself, strict rules for sanitization are being followed. Regular disinfecting of workspaces and temperature checks at entry points have been made mandatory almost everywhere now. This alone was not enough however. To ease the fears of people, the businesses regularly have to go online and mention everywhere on their site, menus, apps, etc. that they are following the cleanliness measures. Engagement rings hatton garden outlets also take utmost care to ensure the safety of their customers.
Last but not the least, there sure have been more losses than profits in most businesses since 2020. But everyone has kept their spirits high and rolled up their sleeves to work in a more determined manner to cover up for those losses. New strategies and techniques are being thought of to keep the economy from crashing and these efforts are surely showing their results.
