How to Keep Your Business Running Online During a Crisis

Digital readiness is no longer a luxury. Whether it is a natural disaster, market shock, cyberattack, or global instability, your business continuity depends on one critical question: can you operate online if everything else stops?

In times of disruption, organisations that stay agile, communicate clearly, and pivot fast are the ones that stay afloat and even gain a competitive edge.

This Is Not Just Digital Transformation, It Is Business Survival

In times of disruption, keeping your business running can become one of the greatest challenges you will face. Whether it is a natural disaster, economic shock, or a sudden shift in market conditions, the burden of protecting yourself, your family, staff, suppliers, and customers can feel overwhelming. Regulations change quickly, and the environment can shift with little notice.

Periods of uncertainty often bring confusion and anxiety. Offices close. Supply chains are disrupted. Customer behaviours shift overnight. It is a hard truth that many bricks-and-mortar businesses are vulnerable in such moments. But survival is possible and it depends on agility and the ability to adapt your business model quickly.

Now more than ever, your ability to pivot and stay connected through digital channels is not just helpful but because it is essential.. Survival depends on agility. Businesses that adapt quickly are the ones most likely to stay standing when conditions shift.

Rethinking the ‘Open for Business’ Sign

When your physical doors close, your digital ones need to open wider. Your website, eCommerce setup, social media, and online service delivery are now the gateway to customers, revenue, and reputation. If you can find a way to keep logistics working, you may even be able to expand outside of your local area.

For businesses that are already successfully delivering entirely online like Amazon, it is a chance to impact customers’ buying habits well into the future.

Likewise, for a hybrid business model like Apple, who have a bricks and mortar and digital footprint, they have options to act swiftly as we have seen recently, by closing their stores worldwide and still maintaining a global business presence.

Even small businesses, like Martial Arts and Pilates Studios, can reinvent themselves and continue to run classes online so their customers can participate from their homes to maintain fitness. From online ordering and virtual consults to live-streamed classes and automated support tools, the shift to digital must be both strategic and fast.

It Is Not Optional Anymore

From personal trainers to physiotherapists, local retailers to logistics firms, businesses across the board are reshaping how they serve customers. Pilates studios running virtual sessions, GP clinics conducting telehealth consults, Retailers shifting to e-commerce with local delivery, B2B service providers building client portals and knowledge hubs.

The current dynamic of business transformation illustrates the value of digital channels over the more traditional channels. This sounds harsh but some analysts think this might be a wake-up call to those that have up until now just focused on operational needs, and haven’t been giving enough attention to digital business, online marketing and resilience planning.

For a small business like a neighbourhood restaurant, the how and the speed of their response to being told to ‘shut’ their business could make the difference between them being able to ‘reopen’ in the future or face a forever close.

As a recent Harvard Business Review reports, ‘When customers are separated from the work that’s been done behind the scenes to serve them, they appreciate the service less and then they value the service less.’

What this means is you need to communicate with them by describing the behind the scenes activity and tell them exactly what you are doing to help the community. It is all about perception.

Sitting Pretty

As a consumer in a first world country, we have the ease of sitting on our sofa and ordering in anything we need.  We order our groceries online, take a University module remotely or use an app to order a family takeaway meal. Now the imperative to engage customers over digital platforms has just got more urgent.

One thing is clear, it has never been more important to engage customers and partners through digital channels. Using stimulus packages to help maintain business and cashflow is the short-term focus to survive and stay in business today.

So, what’s next. If you are one of the lucky ones, you can adapt your business to the changing environment.

Adapting Your Business Model

We are seeing clinicians and medical practices offering consults using telehealth platforms and personal trainers providing virtual training sessions through their social platforms.

This is keeping their businesses going and shows how products and services can be adapted to make them suited to selling through digital channels. During past disruptions, some companies even shifted operations entirely like automakers producing medical equipment or luxury brands manufacturing health supplies. These pivots show how agility in business models can open new opportunities.

In the future, the robot solution on the production line could be the new normal. This shift toward automation highlights a broader point. Resilience often comes from rethinking how we deliver value, even if it means embracing tools we once considered out of reach.

Transitioning From ‘In-Person’ To ‘Online Services’, Are You A Candidate?

Can your product or services be shared or purchased online? You will need to think outside the box with a new business model and marketing strategy aligned to selling online.

Consider the following:

1. Update your sales and marketing strategy to reflect your new ‘online’ business model.
2. Do you already have a website?
   • If you answered ‘yes’ look into adding an ecommerce capability to your site. Just be sure to communicate to your customers the value, convenience and ease of use.

And, yes you need to ‘test’ it to before you launch it. Your website is your sales funnel, so:

• Create rich and relevant content that ensures positive customer experiences every time. Think blogs, video, customer testimonials, podcasts, competitions, articles, specialist landing pages and free resources.
• Use a reputable content creation agency when you need additional help.
• Look at ways to get higher ranking using search engine optimisation (SEO).

• Run targeted online advertising campaigns to promote your brand, products and services, and strengthen the performance of your digital channels and activities.

If you answered ‘no’ start planning your site, find a reliable developer and content creator who can work with you to provide a cost effective and speedy solution. Also, look at online marketing automation software like HubSpot to help you deliver your online marketing program. 

3. Does your business have a current social media presence? There are great benefits in having a sales focus through your social media activity.
4. Choose easy to navigate payment options. When picking up a payment partner do your due diligence and make sure you with work with PCI Compliant vendors like Braintree or Stripe.
5. Also, remember to apply promotional codes. Sometimes the timing and offer can make or break the transaction. Done correctly they really do work.

Take Action Now

Transitioning to an online business might seem like big risk. It needn’t be - the essence is what you already know to be true. ‘Stay in touch with your customers.’ Use a digital toolbox to create a virtual marketplace or shopfront for you to do what you do best.

Evolve and be a winner.

Need Backup? We Are Here

Fileroom helps businesses pivot their operations online with clarity and speed. If you want to explore your options or simply bounce around some ideas, we are offering free 30-minute introductory sessions. No sales pitch, just support.