Universitas Gadjah Mada
Faculty of Economics and Business

It has been more than two years since the Covid-19 pandemic has been happening, now the world community needs to prepare themselves to enter a new phase, which is the post-Covid era. As part of the virtual summer program held by the Faculty of Economics and Business Universitas Gadjah Mada (FEB UGM) on Tuesday (28/06), namely International Week (iWeek) 2022, the topic titled as “Small and Medium Enterprise Post Covid Resilience Strategy” was discussed in one of his lecture series. In practice, the lecture series presented an expert speaker on the topic, Dr. Vanessa Ratten, a lecturer from Department of Management, La Trobe Business School pada La Trobe University, Australia.

At the beginning of her session, Vanessa discussed the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economy and also the problems and opportunities that also came along with it. According to Vanessa, Covid-19 has increased the sense of nationalism and food security in a country, but on the other hand it has also created interdependence between countries. In addition, there is also a reliance on digital technology for needs such as working and studying from home for as long as social distancing policies are enforced. Because of this pandemic, a situation called the new normal was finally imposed where mobility between countries was limited which had a major impact on the tourism, hospitality, and entertainment industries.

Furthermore, Vanessa explained about the opportunities for entrepreneurs in this post Covid-19 era. According to him, a business in times like this is required to be resilient by incorporating a sense of innovativeness in adapting its operational activities to Covid-19 pandemic. This can be done, for example, by carefully reading the opportunities for a product demand (hand sanitizers, masks, etc.) or by adapting in using social media platforms in running a business. To be resilient, some businesses also implement strategies such as risk management and scenario planning. At the end of the discussion, Vanessa mentioned several entrepreneurial ideas. To create a business, we need to think about how the world has changed post Covid-19. Then, develop a new product or service idea that can meet new markets and societal conditions. The lecture series ended with a discussion session with the iWeek 2022 participants and a question and answer session.

Reportage: Kirana Lalita Pristy.

Watch the full video https://youtu.be/JVb4YkipnyU