Business Sectors Boosted by Covid Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a catastrophic effect on the economy and has struck small businesses especially hard. The challenges of the restaurant industry are especially well known; in places where indoor dining has not yet returned, restaurants have failed. Gyms are facing particular obstacles – how can people who wish to use their time to exercise on a treadmill be able to do this while wearing a mask? How will gym owners possibly be able to guarantee that any member cleans out the machines they’ve already used? This would be extremely hard because a substantial part of the clientele of the gym is young adults who are less worried about contracting the virus than those aged 30 or over.
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However, despite the well-documented hardships of some industries, other sectors are booming during the pandemic.
Remote Working Tools and Softwares:
With governments introducing more serious steps, such as complete or partial lockdowns, and companies trying to find ways to sustain an acceptable degree of efficiency, many are moving to remote working applications and software.
As several other tech giants have plummeted in popularity, Zoom’s shares have risen as the pandemic spreads. Microsoft Teams hit 44 million users, a 37% gain equal to Slack’s cumulative number of users in just one week.
Entertainment:
The home entertainment industry is the beneficiary of both travel prohibitions, mandated self-quarantines, and social-distance steps. Internet streaming came to the rescue when sports stadiums and film theaters were shut down.
Netflix gained almost 16 million additional customers in the first quarter of 2020 and its growth rate more than twice the January estimate by the firm. Q1’20 was the highest three-month leap in the 13-year history of streaming, with people searching for entertainment options when bars, theaters, nightclubs, and music halls were empty.
Supermarkets:
Restaurant closures meant that customers who usually eat out would have to prepare their own meals instead. And with home-stay orders in place, stores stayed open as “essential businesses.” People who were out of work tried to cook on their own, and social media was loaded with images and videos of amateur bakers baking bread, scones cookies, and other delicacies. Prices rose, as people became scared of shortages. In comparison, grocery stores did not have to focus too much on couponing and other discount discounts to get shoppers out of the door.
E-Learning:
As of this week, school and university closures have affected 1.5 billion learners in more than 180 countries. Ready-to-use remote learning technology ensured that many programs could be quickly reshaped online. With schools turning to distance learning, many teachers began trying their hands for the first time in Google Classroom or mobile applications like Seesaw for children as young as kindergarten. Many parents are now making their first home-school foray.
In the meantime, large open online courses (MOOCs) and webinars are seeing renewed interest among adults and company owners around the world as they search for answers about self-development and how to succeed financially in order to build alternative revenue sources and side-jobs to solve the crisis. Coursera provided assistance by making the entire course catalog open to colleges worldwide free of charge.
Logistics:
Though supply chains have been remedied due to the spread of the virus, logistics is a field that has undergone a crisis and a boom as food shortages and internet shopping comes to the rescue of people who cannot leave their homes. Many businesses are going to be pressured to reconsider their supply chains and logistics during this crisis.
