The COVID-19 outbreak and lingering social distancing restrictions has forced a re-think of how businesses operate, leading to somewhat of a reshape for many innovation-based industries.

The businesses that have not only survived the pandemic but have gone on to thrive during restrictions are the ones that were progressive and digitally focused when business shutdowns were first announced.

Moving operations online, maximising established online services to keep in contact with customers and identifying new avenues of revenue and growth are just some of the strategies implemented by businesses to see out the difficult trading conditions and put them in a position to thrive once restrictions ease.

One such company that is capitalising on digital growth to ride out the pandemic is buy-now, pay-later service provider Zip.

As a buy-now, pay-later provider, Zip has been heavily impacted by the continued restrictions in Victoria, where the business has witnessed a noticeable dent in retail spending.

However, according to the company’s CEO Larry Diamond, consumers have turned their attention to online shopping in droves, with Diamond saying online sales are at levels he has never seen before.

“Melbourne’s second wave has certainly dented spending in some areas – transport, shoe retailing, food and drink, for example. But other categories have gone nuts, especially spending on electronics, which has been up every single week, compared with late January,” said Diamond.

“Overall, Zip is seeing that spending is tracking ahead of pre-COVID levels, with the biggest shift being to online, where some weeks 75 per cent or more of our numbers are online transactions. COVID has accelerated the shift to online and we expect this habit to persist once the world returns to some level of normality.”

Online employment marketplace Freelancer.com is another business experiencing consistent growth, with web traffic up 60 per cent year-on-year according to CEO Matt Barrie.

“Lots of workers around the world are using Freelancer to supplement their income, business are using freelancers to find people more efficiently and inexpensively, and both are using Freelancer to start new ventures during the pandemic,” said Barrie.

However, while online business is booming, Barrie has been vocal about the need to get on top of the virus in Australia quickly, for the national economy to begin its recovery.

“The fastest way Australia can get its economy up and running is acting hard and swift and going for elimination. Like New Zealand, which has been successful with this strategy, we have a natural advantage in that we are an island that is far away from other countries.

“In June we were pretty much there. Until the debacle with hotel quarantine in Melbourne, every state in the country had an extended period where there was no community transmission. It was pretty obvious that Gladys [Berejiklian] should have implemented border control before the Victorian school holidays instead of waiting until the day after the Eden Monaro election. Annastacia Palaszczuk similarly should not have opened borders with NSW as soon as she did.”

Barrie also urged Australia to use this disruption as a catalyst to transform the economy with a focus on developing a digital economy to future-proof the country.

“If this period isn’t a wake-up call that we need to dramatically transform our economy, I don’t know what is. Technology and the elaborate transformation of our raw materials into sophisticated products with higher margins and a greater global market is the answer.”

Source: Australian Financial Review (subscription required)  | Digital CEOs ride out lockdown and call for future changes

17 August 2020