Small businesses expect demand recovery only in a year's time
Premium- According to the survey, over 82% of businesses have experienced a negative impact and around 60% of companies expect more measures and support, including government initiatives
Mumbai: India’s small businesses, among the worst-hit by the covid-19 pandemic, believe it will take nearly a year for demand to recover to pre-covid levels, showed a survey.
Dun & Bradstreet on Thursday released the results of this survey titled “Impact of covid-19 on Small Businesses in India and the Way Ahead". It covers responses from over 250 small businesses -- 50% each in manufacturing and services sectors -- with annual revenue between ₹100 crore and ₹300 crore across seven major cities of Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad.
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According to the survey, over 82% of businesses have experienced a negative impact and around 60% of companies expect more measures and support, including government initiatives. The results also show that three topmost challenges that might hinder small businesses to scale up their businesses are market access, improving the overall productivity and having access to more finance.
To be sure, the impact on small businesses was somewhat cushioned by a sovereign-guaranteed loan scheme announced last year.
The granular firm level data captured through the Dun & Bradstreet Commercial Disruption Tracker indicated that around 95% of firms were impacted in April 2020 when the national lockdown was imposed. Even with progressive unlocking, 70% of businesses remained disrupted till August 2020 and 40% till end of February 2021, it said.
Owners of small businesses surveyed cited better credit facility, better marketing support and adoption of technology as the three most important support measures that they need to revive their businesses post the pandemic. The pandemic has exacerbated some of these issues and made scaling up company activities even more difficult and given the intensity and duration of pandemic's devastation, these threats are likely to persist in the near future as well, Dun & Bradstreet said.
“The rate of recovery of India's commercial enterprises, and thereby the economy, will be determined by the strength of the recovery of small business" said Arun Singh, global chief economist at Dun & Bradstreet.
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