Commentary

Employee engagement and wellness is key to ensuring employers thrive, and that technology has a major role to play

Hong Kong’s small business owners need to act quickly if they’re to mitigate against supply chain disruption and find customers in new markets.

The COVID-19 pandemic and continuing social unrest sparked by pro-democracy protests have converged to deal a dramatic blow to Hong Kong’s economy, rendering the city’s future uncertain. Experts say Hong Kong is on the edge of a precipice and recovery is expected to be elusive.

The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed changes to our daily lives to an unprecedented scale in just a few months. In Hong Kong, trade shows, conferences, concerts and many other events are being postponed, rescheduled or even cancelled. We have been hearing people talk about the “new normal”, meaning a new way of living and disruptions in our habits and tradition relating to the way we live, work and interact with others. We cannot define what exactly the new normal will become. Things will just never be the same as they were before. Our new normal will continue to change, and it will change very quickly.

The coronavirus pandemic has vastly altered the way businesses operate. From physical meetings and seamless access to company servers, businesses worldwide have been forced to shift to virtual and remote working models. This paradigm shift has changed how people work, collaborate, access data and view work-life balance. Hong Kong was amongst the first cities in the world to enforce social distancing measures and many organisations were left scrambling to enable remote working to minimise operational disruption.

We have no idea of when the COVID-19 will end. People called it the third wave. Given COVID-19’s ferocity, rampant speed and potential to return, Hong Kong enterprises should be extremely agile and explore new ways to continue running the businesses. Fluid as the situation is, traditional businesses might not survive if they do nothing but merely wait for economic recovery.

What started as a bold threat from the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has been stripped of any pretence of mere possibility, as President Donald Trump declared Hong Kong is to officially have its special trade status revoked.

Proactive steps to avoid data breaches

The pandemic has set in motion a complete change in customer shopping behaviour. Not only are people increasingly going online to buy items which they previously preferred to buy offline, such as medicine and groceries, but those earlier uncomfortable with online shopping are now giving it a try.

In today’s business environment, many companies are adopting to the ‘new normal’ of remote operations to minimise disruption. In Asia Pacific, finance teams are presented with a new challenge – closing their books remotely for the first time. Here in Hong Kong, working from home was quickly adopted throughout the city from the beginning of the year, leading to many employees and employers to seek out new ways to adapt to home offices.

Setting up an ecommerce store is no easy feat. Not a lot of people realise the amount of time and effort that goes into building an aesthetically pleasing, functional, and easy-to-use website. It involves a great deal of work.

Hong Kong has taken a series of unfavourable hits in the last year, their unfortunate magnitude clear to see for the watching eyes of the world. The latest of which is United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly stating that the country no longer considers Hong Kong to be adequately independent from China.

Research shows working from home was part of the employee experience before the pandemic hit. Businesses worldwide are urging, and in some cases mandating, employees to work from home. Technology has empowered a global workforce that stays connected in a work-from-anywhere world.  In the last 15 years, working from home has increased 159% on an upward trend.

Not so long ago, having a business website, no matter how slapdash, was a big deal. But nowadays, customers expect the smallest of small businesses to have a website. Online shopping in Hong Kong (and around the globe) has become extremely commonplace.

The very fabric of how the world usually works is being put to the test. The business world and our social life are spinning as the World Health Organization raised its risk assessment of the coronavirus to “very high”, alerting all of wide-spread risk and global impacts. And at press time, things are not exactly looking up. The number of COVID-19 confirmed cases globally has exceeded 90,000, death toll has risen over 3,000, and 60 countries have reported confirmed infection cases. Closer to home, Hong Kong has 100 confirmed infections and, sadly, lost two lives, as of March 2.

In 2019, it’s surprising to see that many business owners are missing out on potential customers simply because they don’t have an online presence. In fact, only 36% of Hong Kong’s small businesses currently have a website, according to our Global Entrepreneurship Survey conducted earlier this year. The survey also found that 35% of Hong Kong’s small businesses rely solely on social media platforms like Facebook for their online presence. It makes little difference what type of business you are in or where it’s located, having your own website that effectively communicates your story to potential customers can be essential for success in today’s digital world. If your company does not have a website yet, and you thinking about getting started, here are three key steps to help you get started building your website.