A Systems View Across Time and Space
Table 3 Growth pattern
From: Business resilience and growth strategy transformation post crisis
Line-by-line coding | Pattern | Theme |
|---|---|---|
• Growth is difficult during the crisis. Especially with more competitors show up. For food business like mine, I don’t think we experienced growth in the time of crisis, we only want to survive this hard time—P3 • I never think about growth these years. I just want to survive—P4 | Focus to survive | No growth |
• We had a lot of cassava and banana ready to be processed at that time. But, our employee couldn’t come to the warehouse, and neither our packaging staff. We’re completely demolished—P6 • When the first lockdown back in 2020, I cant operate my business. So, I don’t think there was growth back then—P5 | Stop operation | |
• Instead of closing down, I tried to open a pre-order service. It helped my business growth and pay off bills—P10 • We let our customers choose their own side dishes in the lunch box we prepared. They also can request their menu to be sold the next day—P11 | Flexibility | Growth support |
• Luckily, we have the technology, I joined Gofood and Grabfood (mobile apps for food delivery) and it worked well so far—P1 • Social Media and Mobile apps are quite helpful during this pandemic, I can’t put my hope to dine-in customers due to the restriction, but selling my products online can make me survive this crisis—P7 | Technology | |
• The condition is getting better these past months; however, the competition is also tight—P4 • Most F&B SMEs here like to follow the trend. I used to have more customers than today but more competitors jumping to the same business decrease my drop my customers—P8 | Competition | Growth force |
• I’m not only in F&B now. I expand my business to selling consumer goods. People need them daily for sure—P1 • I open another pop-up store in another location and looking at its sales so far, it seems like a good decision of mine—P7 • I decided to diversify my product to try to grab new customers—P12 | New opportunities | |
• What to do in the next crisis? I’m not really sure what kind of crisis will show up in the future. But, with or without crisis, I realize that I need to keep pursuing growth—P2 • I understand that in a way to survive, I need to grow the business. So far, I focus more to my daily operation and income. This crisis makes me think more, how shouuld I take this business in the future?—P10 | Pursuing growth | Sustainable growth |
• Due to more competitors in the market, I can’t stop to grow my business. It will really help me to survive and sustain my business in the market—P4 • we become more creative during this crisis. I believe one closed door leads to another open door and we prove that. Being creative and innovative definatelly help my business grow and in the end we are still in the market up until now, we survive this crisis—P7 | Grow to survive |