In small steps, the world takes big strides to fight Covid

In small steps, the world is taking big strides to find an antidote for the pandemic. The unprecedented crisis is all about resilience and hope. And as one of the modern world’s most influential business thinkers, Seth Godin had said, small is the new big!

To reboot life and living from economic losses, the hardest hit small businesses are trying to make a comeback at least to the 2019 levels. These small retailers are riding the innovation horse, digitising double-time and learning to leverage social media like never before. It is unimaginable that in normal times for these local businesses would one day become so customer-centric agile in execution, tech-savvy and futuristic in a matter of days not months.

Late March, when India had just gone into lockdown, the media was rife with reports of the small retailers finding it difficult to cope with stocks and sales. Today, they’re increasingly talking about taming technology and social media to target customers. Here’s a small anecdote on what’s unfolding in this sector. Amid the Covid crisis, small shops rose to the occasion. Astoundingly, their deep legacy learnings of their local customers drove online businesses as well. When entire India was under lockdown, they either became suppliers to online channels or trodded on the ground to give delivery. Standalone, they kept the local economy alive.

Small businesses are part of a segment that is India’s second-largest employer – about 120 million — after agriculture. There are over 12 million small shops, according to Nielsen. And totally they fuel the country’s booming $650 billion retail phenomenon.

Small shops compose businesses that eke their living every day from roadside pushcarts to neighbourhood groceries, to retail garment shops, to online enterprises on the cloud. They contribute to a tenth of the country’s GDP. It is a growth machine for India which slowed down in late March but didn’t stop. They’re now turning around with a vengeance.

A data shows that the small businesses in India have always come back strongly post any adversity. A survey that the American Express India and UK-headquartered market research and data analytics firm YouGov did recently confirm this fact.