How COVID 19 Affected Australian Businesses & Re-Inventing Strategy

By Maulik Patel

01 Jun 2020

COVID 19: Businesses Affected Due To The Pandemic

More than 45% of the Australian businesses have accepted to make some changes in their workforce and working strategy to cope with the pandemic effect, which includes the location of the staff, leaves, or temporarily changing the working hours. Even though Australian businesses (as of now), are open to business, ‘Austrade’ is working closely with a numerous network of departments as the business might work to overcome the evolved issues with COVID-related challenges. Almost, 90% of the businesses across the country are expected to be impacted in the upcoming months.

The businesses that are least likely to be affected due to the impact of COVID are professional, scientific, and technical; marking the essential lists of electricity, gas, and water supply. With this, Australian businesses and common people are currently facing three consequences of a pandemic.

The subsequent and considerable threat to public health and demonstration
Restriction and regulation in routine freedom
Deep financial resistance

With this, 3 out of 5 households have witnessed a segment of unemployment or fear that they might, near about 40% of Australian households faced a reduction in their household income and have been affected due to the loss in the job (be it full-time or part-time). Till this time, a trajectory rate of 10% of unemployment (or say near about 1.5 million people are unemployed in Australia), reporting from the Australian government notices.

This has shaken the common people and their routines daily, the pandemic translated to the real economic venturing issues and their expenditure. This has affected people of different economic age groups, differently. 18-40 is the largest age group that has been affected disproportionately, whereas 65 and above are in a much more stable stage (with minimum things to spend on and a basic lifestyle). It concludes, that no matter what demographic you belong to, heed should be paid to the younger generation, the behaviours and their actions directly affect the economic behaviour of the country.

NOTE: In the next 15 days, do you expect to pay more, less, or the same in the mentioned categories?

Net intent is calculated by subtracting the percentage of the respondents stating they expect to decrease from the percentage of respondents stating they expect to increase in expenditure.

Taking this on a global scale, the aim is to remain reasonably relative and stick to the objectives. The fundamentals have driven prosperity to remain the same.

Following are the set of questions to look upon:

How COVID 19 will change the behaviour of the consumers?
How will this pandemic affect the country and show the concept of ‘lack of resilience’?
How does this change the pyramid of needs and priorities, buying, and paying behaviour?
What part of the demographic has been most affected by this? Are they GenZ or millennials? What can be done to ease the aftershocks?
What new tactics should B2C businesses adapt to meet past the consumers of post-COVID 19?

This includes fiscal and monetary stimulus

Consumer confidence tracks the different stages of COVID 19 progression and government measures

This has weighed in to initiate the deep thread of exploring the Australian’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours that can underpin the economy. It is used to explore and ensure the concerns of the people that aren’t being weighed down by the capacity of the country but are able to recover with an innovative approach in a prosperous way once the crisis has subsided.

The pandemic effect in Australia and public health- top trends to watch

There are lives at risk brim, an approach should be refined. These emerging reckoning trends are based on private-sector monitoring.

With this, there are many places in Australia where the effect of the epidemic is still worse. With this ‘narrative’, several countries have emerged as ‘upsloping in this epidemic’, with lockdown in practice, regions, many have seen fluctuations in the number.

The upcoming weeks have been the test to ‘bend the curve’, the intervention is to be viewed via both lenses of lives and livelihood.

Companies and businesses are targeting different approaches, with some underlying facts, it implies to the key members of the private and public sector in building and adapting the new plans and re-opening of the sectors. One should be prepared to incorporate new information and to work on different approaches, with this, incrementally or radically changing the approach of the resources available.

With the expertise, it is estimated that enhanced treatment is likely to subside by the year 2020, around 18 months is required with a vaccine for the widespread immunisation, in comparison to the next three-to-five years.

Your digital strategy needs to be efficient, and a bold initiative

Companies are aware of circulating new steps when things were ‘normal’, not all are prepared for the crisis, when the obstacles are too steep and the experimentation bar is too high, where stakeholders are lurching on immediate returns, if the organisation hinders agility and collaboration, this slows the ability and failing to match the rate of change. This requires businesses to adapt and embrace bold change.

This calls for companies that have to adopt digital technologies early and at scale with resource allocation against digital initiatives, co-relating with valued packages.

A comprehensive digital strategy is the most effective way for the digital transformation

Irregularities in supply and demand due to outbreak

Fuel prices have seen a responsive decline moderately due to decreased demand for oil from international manufacturers, with this, the closing of air travel and other factors have contributed to decreasing oil consumption. Lesser demand for crude leads to fuel prices falling down, affecting the revenue profitability of the economy, putting pressure on the profit margins.

Nearly 80% of the businesses in the information sector are set to experience a massive effect on the demand, making it near 70% across the country. Some of Australia’s major advertising and broadcasting companies witnessed their revenue falling by 50%, with many publishers and the printing industries falling and closing down.

With this, the digitization of the broadcasting industry has seen an uprise in the margins, many video-on-demand have benefitted in this time as more Australians are staying at home, SVOD operator Netflix has doubled its forecast as individuals are more at home. Many are remotely working making it easier to coordinate and anticipate the working digitally.

From March, more than 60% of Australian businesses have been affected by the COVID 19, in a granular format, about 20% of the businesses have been “affected massively”, whereas 30% have been “moderately affected”, 10% of businesses have been affected “just a little” and the rest 40% are surviving and actually doing great, even during the pandemic.

Don’t let this pandemic turn a blind eye to digitising your business

People are on different digital platforms (for different reasons), they are at home and they want to be busy even at the cost of increased screen times. Your marketing strategy should be precise and look at how you can have real-time engagement with your audience. Everyone is switching from one platform to another, this shows people are walking around digitally, desperate to see something, and brands are desperate to get their products viewed.

When your audience is online, the question is, ‘why isn’t your brand sprinting to its audience?’. Have an approach in a marketing sense that is intentional and empathetic. You need dedicated steam of people to streamline your business in your industry for your survival.

We know the times are hard, your business has been affected and you have never been so exhausted in your entire life. Don’t let this uncertainty stop you, there are numerous ways for you to revive your business, going digital is one. Your audience is already looking online, don’t let your competitor take the crown of you. Create a community space, we all share the same reason for falling.

How Clickmatix can help you in reviving the stream of your business?

With the advanced spreading of Coronavirus and the eventual opening of the world slowly, it is still on alert mode, scrambling to deal with the aftermath of the pandemic. Witnessing the obvious behavioural shift of the people, where the habitat is their home, avoiding public places like restaurants, stores, and other places where they usually spend money.

Since the customers are indoors and presumably online, this is where you take advantage of Clickmatix’s effective digital marketing strategy which is considered a brand’s effective method against coronavirus.

Be it eCommerce or any other market, the aim is to focus on developing transparent messaging across the board, with this, on a product/service level, means providing to-the-point descriptions, photos, and videos that assist people in getting the accuracy of the product and details of the service.

Our digital marketing offers ensures that your brand is protected from the impact of the coronavirus. We ensure that with our effective strategy, you capture the market with traffic and not sell products or services using low-grade tactics like ‘fear marketing’ or ‘misinformation about the product’. We focus on delivering the right message at the right time to the right audience.