Reversing the pandemic trend

With a backpack hanging over his shoulder, deliveryman Imran Hossain rides his bicycle to the customer address, with one thought always crossing his mind, how he can make it within the shortest possible time to pick another order.
The more he can deliver, the more he can earn. His bicycle lurches on the way amidst the jam-packed city streets, lanes and by-lanes; sometimes, he walks with his two-wheelers on the pavement to beat the gridlock gripping the city.
Like Imran, many others are working for online small businesses that have virtually reversed the trend of a fall in trade activities hit hard by the pandemic.

During the countrywide shutdown, when everything comes almost to a standstill, and every day is full of new uncertainties, micro-enterprises are up and doing their best, making a fast buck and satisfying their customers’ needs instead.
Of an emerging number of small enterprises such food, grocery, clothing aided by Facebook and other online platforms, food and fashion items top the list.

The small-scale e-commerce has broken the mold of even the usual career path of many educated adult folks, male or female, who now envision a future of business excellence through their entrepreneurship. While many such start-ups market their products online and deliver those through courier service companies, a large number of such newly emerging entrepreneurs deliver orders themselves to make an extra margin during the pandemic.

It is now evident that once started out of whim as a fad, scores of business ideas have grown into the bread and butter for many, who are in an effort to make them manifold and diverse. Many of them consider pandemic is a blessing in disguise. Others see the business as a means to meet ends, to survive in the cruel megapolis.
While 2020 and 2021 will go down to the abyss of history as the darkest years of the century, they will also give the businesses and communities a renewed hope to rise over such a long stretch of critical period with a series of innovation and determination. This is particularly true for small business communities who are standing in the storm when the wind did not blow them away because they adjusted their sails and demonstrated unfathomable resilience.

A deepening digital acceleration is instrumental in expanding a much stronger and greater number of small businesses across the country, pulling them out of the cocoon of a limited metropolitan-centric periphery.
The State of Small Business Report, an ongoing research collaboration between Facebook, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Bank, suggests that the micro-enterprises are making an optimum sale digitally and will continue to do so in the days to come.

Being shut in home when online platform is the key to entertainment other than cable television, internet surfers get along with internet, become influenced by digital marketing and ultimately go for purchase that is up by at least 15-20 per cent among urban consumers during the pandemic. The proportion of online sales, therefore, has gone higher compared to what was made prior to Covid-19 that hit the world.

This trend is very likely to continue as well as strengthen since it is likely that many more small businesses will move online this year.
Now, it is time for digital acceleration to cater for more small-town businesses to tap into their potentials. The concept of digital Bangladesh will hold water only when digitisation will embrace everyone and when it brings back an economic output, the fruition of which should be cosmopolitan.

Frankly speaking, digitisation can lead to a global village in which inhabitants can earn through virtual experience and innovations.
Just think for a moment. Who does not want to have a native taste of food, fruits and other essentials amid the galore of impurities in metropolitan cities and capital?
Of course, everyone does, but what comes in the way is the linkage gap between the native suppliers and the city consumers. Despite the fact that some city-based platforms are trying to bridge the gap and making headway, they are less than being considered to be noteworthy.

Therefore, it is time to think out of the box and decentralise facilities to bring a whole lot of workforce – male and female –living in remote villages under economic activity in order for an inclusive development.
In 2021, the rise of a stronger community among small businesses is expected to be on the horizon, with many coming to support themselves and lift others from their pitiable conditions by creating livelihood opportunities.
The online-based small business has made it simpler to start over, thereby becoming a precedent for others too to follow suit, overcoming social barriers.

A new wave of home entrepreneurs and women-led businesses alongside the existing ones will emerge in the foreseeable future on the back of the digital drive.
This is just one minute example of self-empowerment for women that account for half the total population and that can enjoy economic emancipation through their own means.
With small businesses contributing to 25 per cent of the GDP, it is at the same time necessary to give a look at the informally grown micro-business activities and facilitate their flourishment.
There is hardly any doubt that the current year will not just define the recovery from the pandemic but it will help figure out the coming decade of entrepreneurship and innovation.

* The writer is the Executive Editor at The Business Post.*