Micro-business Continuity and Resilience Strategies for COVID-19 Crisis: Entrepreneurs' Insight from Bangladesh

Abstract

The contribution of micro-businesses is essential towards economic development in Bangladesh. Micro-enterprises provide income and employment opportunities to the people, especially those with low incomes, and offered more affordable goods and services to the public. The recent outbreak of Covid-19 has severely affected the global and Bangladeshi economy. Primary victims of the Covid-19 outbreak are micro-enterprises compared to large enterprises, as they typically do not have enough financial and managerial resources to cope with a disruption that might carry on for an extended period of time. Additionally, these firms are highly dependent on their routine business transactions and a small number of customers. This article aims to assess the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on these businesses and provide policy recommendations to reduce business losses and survive through the crisis. Covid-19 pandemics have necessitated several travel bans and restrictive measures. In Bangladesh, the country's resistance movement has the strongest impact on the small business sector. In this manner, many entrepreneurs have to suffer business loss, and reduced income as some supporting sectors such as retail and transportation cease to exist. Therefore, there remains little understanding of a global pandemic's implications on micro-entrepreneurs for business continuity and return-planning efforts. Business Continuity Plan tells the organizations how to act during disasters such as coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) which organizations usually underestimate can land them in serious troubles. This study represents micro-entrepreneurs views from Narayanganj, Dhaka, in Bangladesh, about the risks and benefits of mobility as a business continuity strategy. The results of unstructured phone interviews provide insights on the business survival approach and recovery plan of micro-

Effect of Entrepreneurial Orientation on Enterprise Performance: Basis for Microenterprise Community Mobile App Development

“…Micro-enterprise businesses are essential to the socioeconomic development of the country as it provides income and creates jobs to the people, especially those with low incomes (Al-Mamun & Fazal, 2018;Yesmin et al, 2021). It offers the public more affordable goods and services.…”

“…It offers the public more affordable goods and services. Its routine business transactions are highly dependent on a small number of customers (Yesmin et al, 2021). Therefore, the proposed action plan of this study targets to take action on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) No.…”