Business Opportunities During And After Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic

 Covid-19 of coronavirus has disrupted the global economy. Many businesses were severely impacted by the Coronavirus. Many businesses closed shops, many jobs were lost. In the midst of all this, the pandemic presented new business opportunities and also brought some of the existing ones to limelight resulting to increase in their profitability. 

The pandemic has  made a paradigm shift. While a lot of businesses were recording losses occasioned by low or no patronage, some other businesses were declaring profits of 100 – 400% increase. 

The coronavirus pandemic has introduced a new normal — a new way of live and doing business. The interesting thing is that this new normal has come to stay. The pandemic is not going to be over so soon, and when it finally goes, we can’t totally return to old way of life and doing business. It is therefore important for any one who wants to invest into  business venture look towards new trend of opportunities that the Covid-19 has presented. 

You may be asking “What are these new business opportunities one can venture into during and after coronavirus?”

I am going to tell you some of them in this article, just read on. 

Some countries didn’t directly suffer severe loss by the coronavirus but by cut in trade (import, export). Countries like Nigeria where the country’s economy largely depends on crude oil export and import of almost all other important commodities and where many business activities are conducted by human physical contacts suffered heavy blow. 

What Are The Business Opportunities During And After Coronavirus Pandemic?

Those goods and services that were classified as essential goods and services, and the media of communication and doing jobs due to prohibition of physical contacts during the Covid-19 lockdown are where business opportunities lie now and after the pandemic. Some of the business opportunities include:

  1. Agribusiness 
  2. Sell of food commodities and other consumer goods
  3. Bank payment system services (POS services) 
  4. Telecom business 
  5. Production and sell of medical products 
  6. Online business (e-commerce, blogging etc)

Agribusiness

Agribusiness is all about farming, processing, packaging and sell of agricultural products (food). Every household priorities food. This priority will be maintained whether there is Covid-19 or not. In fact families will forego other family needs to meet their nutritional needs. 

Traditionally farmers practice subsistence agriculture where they produce essentially what their families consume, and only sell the excess. This age long agricultural practice made many people look at agriculture as poor man business. Time has come for us to look beyond that and get into commercial farming as a business. Agriculture and its value chain present many profitable business opportunities in Nigeria and in the world at large. Agricultural value chain ranges from manufacturing and distribution of agro-allied products (farm inputs, equipment, processing facilities),  seedlings, farming, distribution and sell of farm produce, processing, packaging and sell of agricultural products. In simple term, there are business opportunities in:

  1. manufacturing, distribution and sell of farm inputs like fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides,
  2. Fabrication and sell of agricultural implements/ equipment and equipment used in food processing. 
  3. Seeds and seedlings production and distribution. There is increasingly need for quality and hybrid seeds and seedlings for healthy and good yield. 
  4. Growing of crops and animal husbandry 
  5. Becoming an offtaker that will buy the farm produce from the farmers and supply them to the markets where they can get to the consumers. Many farm produce rot without getting to the market due to weak supply chain. This results to loss on the side of the farmers and food scarcity on the side of the consumers.
  6. Processing, packaging of agricultural products. Many farm produce can be processed into other food varieties. So there is business opportunities in that area. 

There are some priority agricultural value chains in Nigeria in this era. They include Rice Beans, Maize, Wheat, Fish, Poultry, Oil palm, Yam, Soybean, Cocoa, Cowpea, Dairy Milk, Beef, Cassava, Plantain, Horticulture (Fruits and Vegetables), Sesame and Cotton.

Rice, Cassava, Maize are major staple food in Nigeria. Ban on importation of rice ,maize and poultry products has created lucrative business opportunities around these value chains.

Sell Of Food Commodities And Other Consumer Goods 

Priority every family has this time and always is to have food on their tables. People are not much interested in luxury goods in this people because their means of livelihoods have been affected. Data by Nigerian Bureau of Statistics show that in 2019, Nigerians spent N40.20 trillion as household consumption expenditure, in which a whopping N22.7 trillion representing 56.65% was spent on food. Even if the absolute value of amount food goes down this period, the percentage will definitely be up. 

Payment Services Bank Operator/Agent 

Payment Services Banks facilitate low-value transactions in remittance services, micro-saving and withdrawal services in Nigeria especially in the remote areas leveraging technology to further deepen financial inclusion in a secured manner. They carry out payments for utilities like, power, water; pay TV subscriptions, telecommunication air time purchases, etc. Most commercial banks also participate in this kind of operation. Central Bank of Nigeria, in August licensed 3 additional Payment Services Banks, PSBs. Due to Covid -19 social distancing protocol observed in banks, bank customers find it difficult transacting business in the bank hence they resort to patronizing POS agents. These days, POS operators stay close to bank branches or ATM galleries to tap from the overflows from the banks and ATM galleries; where as the PSBs were created to serve the unbanked low income earners in remote locations. Becoming a payment services bank agent otherwise known as POS agent or getting a license and open your own PSB have therefore become  good business opportunities.

Telecom and ICT Businesses

According to data by Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, telecommunication companies made the most profit during Coronavirus pandemic lockdown in Nigeria followed by banks. People were buying airtime and data like never before. As people were not able to gather, travel or conduct business in workplaces, they engaged in telephone voice calls, video calls and e-conferenceing, e-learning,  on-line shopping and work from home. All these were made possible through Telecom and ICT infrastructures. Many mobile apps experienced a lot of downloads.  Eric Yuan, Zoom CEO made about $12 billion in three months. This blockbuster quarter was as a result of the coronavirus pandemic which saw people having more of videoconferencing. I can tell you this has become a new normal which will continue even after the pandemic.

Production and Sell of Medical Products

Medical and pharmaceutical products are very essential products which do not have off seasons. Covid -19 is a health crisis, so it has led to upsurge in demand for health products.

Online Businesses

Online businesses including e-commerce, work from home, blogging 

E-commerce

It means carrying out business transaction on the internet. Any time people buy and sell goods or services online, they are engaging in e-commerce. Many entrepreneurs world over are leveraging on the internet in advancing their businesses. Transaction of businesses in the internet especially online stores increased geometrically during this coronavirus era. Big online stores like Amazon, Alibaba made all time high profile this period  including Nigerian online stores like Konga, Jumia. Jeff Bezos, Owner of Amazon make $13 billion in one day due to rise in online purchases during coronavirus pandemic. 

According to a survey carried out by McKinsey & Company on  Nigerian consumer sentiment during coronavirus crisis, more than 50 percent of consumers are shopping at new stores, retailers, and websites, citing better prices, promotion, and easy accessibility as the reasons for doing so. 

Advantages of E-commerce abound

  1. Wide reach of customers
  2. Easily accessible 
  3. Convince on the side of both buyer and sell 
  4. It’s cost effective – you don’t need huge sums of money to set up online store as you would need to o set up physical store.
  5. Secured payment
  6. You don’t necessarily need to have physical location 
  7. You can work from the comfort of your home 

As entrepreneur looking for business opportunities during and after coronavirus, you can venture into any of various categories of e-commerce 

  • Set up your own online store to sell physical goods especially consumables and household items 
  • Engage in affiliate marketing
  • Provide online freelance services. You can sign up to platforms like Upwork .com, Fiverr.com
  • Drop shipping

Blogging

You can sell your ideas and knowledge to others by writing and sharing them online and earn money. Everyone is online surfing for one information or the other, so you can share the information you have online to impart others. Business is all about solving problems. The beauty of it is that you can start blogging for free and earn money . Blogger.com and WordPress.com offer free blog templates and free domain hosting. I intend to write separate article on this topic. There are several ways you can monetize your blog:

  • Placing ads on your blog through Google Adsense or any other sources
  • Selling e-books
  • Sell of online courses or reports 
  • Affiliate marketing 
  • Email marketing
  • Getting sponsorship.

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