Boston To Berlin: Indie Bookstores Weather Corona Crisis Closures, Creatively

During the COVID-19 pandemic, owners of the French bistro Bell's took a financial risk and began investing more money in their employees to incentivize working, increase employee satisfaction and retention and overall drive more profits. The decision has since paid off and is reimagining the traditional restaurant structure.

South Korea's economic growth is one of the few that have not stagnated or declined during the coronavirus pandemic. Although much of this is due to how effectively the country handled containment protocols from the start, the overall fiscal response – which included encouraging residents to reinvest government payouts in local businesses – also played a significant role. In one province, this included using non-cash payments "that could only be spent in shops inside the region, rather than as cash that could be hoarded."

In Cleveland, Ohio, several small businesses have joined a co-op of companies using an employee-owned model to help with the financial constraints brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Although the process of joining the cooperative can be complicated, it has shown promise for increased business stability and, already, employees have reported it has helped with personal finances.

Despite a nationwide months-long coronavirus lockdown in Norway, the economy was able to remain stable due to a "decades-long effort to create an equitable economy" that helped the government to enact a package that provided businesses and self-employed individuals' tax relief and deferrals. Although Norwegians pay roughly the same amount of taxes that Americans do, their taxes largely pay for social welfare programs which include unemployment benefits, retirement pay, and health care coverage. This "national ethos of economic equity" is what helped the country to navigate the pandemic.

Food trucks and other street food businesses are shifting their approach to meet the new demands of a largely stay-at-home workforce. Some are parking on residential streets at night instead of office parking lots during the day and others are selling basic groceries or delivering takeout to their customers.

When the Bay Area issued a shelter-in-place order as a response to containing the spread of COVID-19, businesses had to adapt. From a local distillery creating hand sanitizer at cost, to a restaurant offering groceries, to a catering business selling drive-through meals, local businesses have gotten creative to maintain revenue and pay employees.

The coronavirus outbreak has had a detrimental impact on economies due to business and industry closures but some Chinese enterprises have implemented strategies to help recover faster. From early on-set crisis teams that drove uniform change throughout chain businesses to redeploying employees to other stores and encouraging an online presence, some businesses throughout the region have already reported positive gains overall.

The Basic Rights Counsel Initiative in Cross River State, Nigeria, teaches women who were forced into marriage and slavery as young girls the skills necessary to start their own businesses and support themselves and their children.

The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the ways in which the food system is broken, but governments, NGOs, and philanthropists are working to address the discrepancies by connecting small-scale farmers of color with businesses that can purchase their produce at fair rates. “For the first time, they felt connected with a real community. For the first time, they felt they were getting paid what’s right for what they’re growing,” a business advisor for one of the operations explains.

Online retailers in China launched rural live-streaming initiatives to aid farmers in selling their products directly to consumers. After traditional selling methods were halted due to the novel coronavirus, farmers needed new sales channels to reach customers who now had to shop online. This new model could help the agricultural industry survive the pandemic.