But if you’re one of the fortunate businesses that has actually benefitted from this unique time and seen increased demand and revenue, you’re facing an entirely different dilemma. How do you forecast and plan now that everything you expected to occur in 2020 went very differently and you adapted your business accordingly (and reaped the rewards)?
Some of the shining stars of the stock market these past 13 months won’t surprise you. Netflix saw its stock price and number of subscribers soar over the last year. Zoom saw an astronomical increase in market cap and active users as people everywhere started holding virtual meetings and family game nights this way. Shopify, e-commerce platform, kept small and medium-sized businesses going by helping them move their businesses online—and experienced a significant increase in both share price and market cap. (Read more on some of the pandemic “stock darlings” in InsiderMonkey’s in-depth report).
These aren’t the only types of businesses that did well. Forbes shared that these industries thrived during the pandemic:
The problem now is this: what do you do when you experienced an increase in revenue, and maybe you even staffed up to accommodate increased demand, but you’re already seeing your business return to pre-pandemic levels (or at least, not the same levels of the last year)?
In some ways, this is a good problem to have, but it’s still an issue you cannot ignore. There’s no roadmap for this since it’s happening as we speak, but here is a list of questions that may help you with the three essentials to navigating uncertain times: 1) plan ahead with caution 2) consider how your customers are changing and 3) think beyond your most obvious competition (e.g., if you’re a grocery store, restaurants are your indirect competition).
Here are some questions you can go through with your team as you make decisions about the future:
While the pandemic might have been a surprise boost to your business rather than an anchor, many of the same best practices still apply. You should always know who you serve. You must continue to plan and strategize. You need to understand your customers (and keep working to do this), including what their needs and challenges are.
The SiteSeer team doesn’t have a crystal ball to give you the answers to everything you need to know, but we are experts at market planning, customer analysis, competitive assessment, predictive and AI modeling. Our SiteSeer platform can be customized to meet your needs and we have an in-house team of analysts with 20+ years of retail research and analytics experience.
Need help planning beyond the pandemic? Contact us.