A Comparative Study of Various Strategies in Dealing With Covid-19 for SMEs

Abstract

In 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic upended society and industry, in organisations the negative affect of the crisis disturbed various processes. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Netherlands struggled with constructing and implementing a proper approach for dealing with the crisis and adherence to the measures posed by the government. The ability for the organisations to rely on their past strategies regarding risk-management was not capable of continuing for such a long duration. Particularly since governmental regulations were highly dynamic as they changed quickly and were replaced. For many organisations Covid-19 created a high-risk work environment in which the resilient abilities of the organisations were addressed for survival. This research analyses handling of the Covid-19 crisis by using the concept of resilience in risk-management.The first section of the paper analyses the response of the Dutch government, the drawn up measurements are portrayed against the number of hospitalized patients. Next, we provide an overview of the concept of resilience and potential applications in solidarity, communication and scarcity are analysed on a national level. The second section focuses on practice, in which we look into organisations in different industries and their approaches for dealing with the Covid-crisis. The managerial decisions of three Dutch SMEs that operate both national and international have been analysed by conducting interviews. Resilience is proven to help in dealing with highly changing dynamic scenarios like the Covid-19 crisis; it is therefore coupled to the findings from the practical research. We concluded a number of guidelines from the interview results and literature review that aim to increase the resilient abilities of organisations. The guidelines are directed at the threshold for working from home, flexibility of offices and production lines, software for working from home, information use, supply chain flexibility, implementation of regulations and company culture.