How Businesses have Pivoted to Survive the Pandemic

The year 2020 has proven to be very difficult for quite literally, the entire world. Almost no country has been exempted from the challenges surrounding COVID-19 and other problems that have come throughout 2020. One of the great things is that we have seen some exceptional examples of the resilience of mankind to change and improve to meet a fast paced and quickly changing market. There are a few examples of how we have changed in extraordinary ways to make it work.

Events Services

One of the unexpected changes that has come from 2020 is the fact that events of any kind of been cancelled and have even become illegal. Most every medium and large company in the world has some kind of retreat, quarterly or yearly meeting either with the employees, executives, stakeholders, clients or all of them on different occasions. Corporate events are a major industry that died almost overnight in 2020. Many major events companies have pivoted from an events company to software company. That means that at the beginning of this year they were a service-based business and now they are a technology/software-based company. The entire premise of the business is different now.

Healthcare/Hospitals

Hospitals and the whole health care world has changed maybe most drastically due to the events of 2020. We have started to see challenges differently and this issue has exposed many of the weaknesses and gaps in the current system. Not only at a systemic level but on a personal level as well. It was apparent to all of us in the country and world that we were ill equipped for just such a situation. A great many hospitals and health care interest companies have begun to have data enabled collaborations. They gather copious amounts of data and scrutinize over it to make powerful and informed decisions as a whole to take the best next steps.

Food Industry

Eating out is a part of everyday life that most of us didn’t know was so part of our lives. Restaurants have had a number of different changes that are highly innovative and effective to better reach their customers. Some major restaurant chains including Subway, Panera and California Pizza Kitchen have begun selling fresh groceries. They can buy the premium restaurant quality ingredients and restaurants stay afloat. Many grocery stores are converting to what are now called “dark stores”. This means that customers are not allowed inside and instead it serves to fulfill orders to delivery and pickup from other stores.

Delivery/At Home

There is nothing short of a revolution around the delivery and at-home innovations happening in many industries. For example, almost every fitness company has had to change to a live streaming workout system. This has given rise to new solutions like Pelaton and Mirror fitness technology that are specifically effective at home. They wouldn’t be effective the same way at a gym.

General Motors has unleashed its small fleet of self-driving cars to make food deliveries in San Francisco for two local food banks. If there was ever a better time to unveil game changing technology, that is it.

Making Crucial Supplies

There have been many companies that have made major changes because they see a need in the world and coincidentally a vacuum in the market that was not previously apparent. Companies like Zaidi Recyclers who used to collect and recycle cardboard now collect and repurpose plastic to make face shields which are a crucially valuable product.

Some companies haven’t changed their whole business but invested into finding innovative solutions. Mercedes worked with the University College of London to invent a breathing aid that delivers oxygen to the lungs without the need for a ventilator.

This and many other examples of how people have hustled and worked to make a difference when it matters most for their company and for the world.