20 of the 55 businesses I audited were directly affected by Covid in ways that demanded immediate digital change. Not in the general sense that everyone was affected. These were businesses whose entire operating model had to pivot.
The pivots
A translation service that had been delivering 90% of its work face to face suddenly couldn’t. Hardware and files were spread across three offices. Nothing was set up for remote working. Data security concerns made the transition more complicated than just sending everyone home with a laptop.
A fitness and wellbeing company had just secured two large corporate clients for in-person delivery. Lockdown hit. Within weeks they were delivering sessions via Facebook Live and Google Meet, platforms they’d never used professionally. The pivot happened out of survival, not strategy.
A clothing retailer went from 50% of sales through the website to over 70% practically overnight. Their back-end systems weren’t built for that volume. Stock management, fulfilment and customer service processes all needed rethinking at speed.
A training provider who’d always delivered in person had to figure out how to make online sessions interactive and engaging when they’d never used Zoom before. The content was excellent. The delivery method was entirely new.
A theatre company saw a year of work cancelled in a single week. Everything. They pivoted to digital delivery of performances and workshops, funded by emergency grants.
The stopgap that became the strategy
What struck me about these businesses wasn’t the crisis itself. It was what happened afterwards.
Nearly all of them had adapted. Messily, imperfectly, often with no plan and no budget. They’d thrown together emergency solutions in March 2020 and somehow made them work. Facebook Live became a delivery platform. Zoom became a classroom. A basic online shop became the primary sales channel. WhatsApp became the customer service desk.
The problem was that those emergency solutions were still running unchanged a year or two later. The stopgap had become the strategy.
The fitness company was still delivering through Facebook Live when a proper platform with better features, better reliability and better client experience would have cost less than a hundred pounds a month. The retailer’s fulfilment process still had manual steps that should have been automated months ago. The training provider was still using the free version of Zoom when the paid version would have given them the breakout rooms and recording features they needed.
Emergency infrastructure has a shelf life
There’s nothing wrong with the emergency fix. When lockdown hit and your business model collapsed overnight, anything that kept revenue coming in was the right answer. Nobody had time for strategy. You did what worked.
But emergency solutions are designed for speed, not longevity. They have compromises built into them. They use free tiers when paid versions would be better. They bolt new functions onto platforms that weren’t designed for them. They rely on workarounds that everyone knows are clunky but nobody has time to replace.
If your digital setup is still based on what you threw together during lockdown, it might be time to look at it properly. Not because the emergency fix was wrong. It wasn’t. It kept your business alive. But you deserve better than emergency infrastructure. Your customers deserve better too.
The upgrade audit
Here’s a quick way to check whether your Covid-era digital setup needs revisiting. For each tool or platform you’re using, ask three questions.
Did you choose this or did you grab it? If you grabbed it in a panic, there might be a better option now that you have time to look properly.
Are you on the free tier when the paid tier would solve problems you’re working around? Free tools are great but they have limits. Sometimes the upgrade pays for itself in time saved within the first week.
Has your business changed since you set this up? If you’re doing twice the volume, serving different clients or delivering in different ways, the tools need to match. Systems that were right for March 2020 might not be right for where you are now.
This article is part of a series based on findings from 55 digital audits. Read the full case study for the complete picture, or get in touch if you’d like an honest look at where your business stands.