Following the Government’s announcement this week, now is the time to start building a business plan towards post-pandemic recovery. Like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, many businesses will be forever changed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
What will the “new normal” look like? BBC Business News has spoken to companies in five different sectors to get their insights into their new ways of doing business and to find out how prepared they are to return to work next month (June):
- Office – A marketing agency has found that working from home suits its workers and so will not be returning to office working, saving the business 10% in turnover. They plan to have a brainstorming session every two weeks in a local hotel instead.
- Construction – Nearly every aspect of construction site life has changed according to this building firm. Health & safety inductions are now carried out at home, signing into site has gone digital and there has been meticulous planning into on-site safety measures.
- Restaurant – The crisis forced this fine dining restaurant to diversify by adapting its recipes to suit a takeaway service, moving cookery classes online and setting up an ingredient delivery service. With industry predictions of significant growth for the delivery service, the accelerated plans have been welcomed by the restaurant owner.
- Factory – The social distancing measures will continue with separate shifts for both factory and office workers on a rotation scheme to limit the numbers of people on site at any one time.
- Shop – High street retailers have been hit particularly hard by the lockdown, however this optician chain has introduced a Facebook chat function, remote appointments for non-urgent cases and social distancing measures for essential eye care.
Lessons learned by HAYNE
Adding to the insights above, our team at HAYNE have found that our customers now have an increased faith in our ability to carry out software projects remotely. In fact, a project is starting with a new customer we have never actually met face-to-face.
It’s been interesting to see the upsurge in website visitors, especially around the topic of cashflow planning software. For any business which has identified shortcomings with its budgeting and planning systems through the COVID-19 crisis – or indeed any part of its financial performance management – now would be a perfect opportunity to book a systems healthcheck with us.
HAYNE has always been a mobile team, but this is the first time we have deployed 100% remote working. We are putting together plans for a phased return, with office and homeworking combining to form a distancing plan. Our twice yearly team-building days will be extra special this year for sure, we can’t wait!
Next steps
Contact us to book a free systems healthcheck
You can also read the BBC Business News article referenced in this article