COVID19 : Opportunity for “Business Out of Box”

COVID19 has thrown some serious challenges to whole world. But brighter side of this is, it opened many temporary opportunities along with this. This is a wonderful way to see short or long term diversification. India has shown the world, some of the amazing way of diversification in short span of time. This has opened some short-term opportunities for many people. Hence, I am terming this bubble business. These may not be a long-lasting proposition but amazing short-term plan for investing of time and money.

Many people came up with some immediately required substance. For example – sanitizers and face mask. These two are indispensable in COVID and post COVID time. Many people who were jobless, doing some other job, housewives etc started selling these two items. We know that once this situation gets stabilized these businesses will not be that important. Rather these businesses might slow down or even fade away. But it is important to note that these businesses, helped people to earn some quick money. This is a clear-cut game of filling up the immediate demand with available supply. Many people made good money in this. These businesses are short timed or just like “bubbles” – which can burst at any time. So long term prospects of these businesses are not there. These businesses help to make few people easy & quick money, which they might invest in some other place.

Diversification is another wonderful phenomenon which came up in this phase. The local small-scale businesses too wonderfully came up with this concept.  These were probably distress call from them rather than planned diversification. But the rule of “necessity is the mother of invention” played well here. So, many people who were doing some other job previously, came with solely different job. The diversification which the India’s small-scale local businesses have shown, is beyond comparison. Let me site few examples. A construction worker who used to make buildings came up with the idea of selling fruits. He had taken a van and went to every housing complex of his locality selling fruits. People who were not allowed to go out due to lockdown, merrily purchased from him. A person who used to do odd jobs, started selling fish. Lockdown stuck people were happy to get fish at doorstep. The Eastern part of India faced a cyclone during this period by the name of “Amphan”. It led to destruction of electrical grid. Many parts of Eastern India were under dark for few days. A person was an auto rickshaw driver, started selling candles. These diversifications came up to their brains was solely due to distress. They were ready to do anything which can help them to earn some money. After all their survival depends on it. If we study this behaviour properly, we will find it is an amazing show of Intelligence and optimised utilization of available resources to fulfil the demand.

Apart from these there were many interesting business case studies in COVID time.