They are a resilient lot.
For many business owners, the pandemic called for a mental shift: they went from offence to playing defence as they shored up their systems to adjust to a new way of doing things. For some that meant health and safety measures, often beyond what governments mandated. Many others strengthened their online capabilities including more visibility and payment systems.
These are the findings of a new study of how business owners feel as the lockdown winds up conducted for CIBC.
Its primary finding is that 70% of the businesses surveyed are optimistic about what lies ahead. And they feel they can shift again – back to growth mode from a defensive posture. That’s 10 points higher than last November and 20 points better than in the early days of the pandemic.
And it turns out these owners found ways to pivot and make lemonade out of lemons when faced with the COVID challenge. At the beginning, 4-out-of-5 figured the pandemic would negatively affect their business. By the mid-point that had declined to 70% and now it is under 60-percent.
