By Luke Yerbury

THE Covid-19 crisis has hit businesses across Scotland like nothing in recent memory. The retail, hospitality and leisure industries have borne the brunt of the shutdown, but the knock-on effect of this disruption has rippled through the rest of the business community, and the impact of this crisis is clearly indiscriminate.

As businesses regroup, knowing they can’t sit still and need to continue operating in this new world, most are considering how they can use the most important tool at their disposal – technology.

Had this occurred just 20 years ago, the ramifications for businesses would have looked very different. No broadband or mobile data, Facebook or LinkedIn, Skype or Zoom. We now have all these and much more at our disposal, but for many companies – and some sectors in particular – business has always been conducted in a very traditional way and using these tools can seem intimidating.

Some sectors, such as professional services, are heavily reliant on in-person networking, face-to-face meetings and training. Moving everything online rapidly, without having the experience or resource, can seem insurmountable.

Most companies have dispersed their workforce, sending them to work remotely. Initially this has felt like a novelty: working with family and pets around us making our daily grind a little more interesting and challenging.

However, as the novelty wears off, business needs to keep pushing forward and exploring how to use tools to overcome these new challenges. Creating interesting and fresh communication content to speak to your dispersed team and clients is more critical than ever – but how to do this?

We’ve all got a wealth of resources at our disposal that we use already, but now these resources have become one of our strongest communication tools. Arguably they’re now the linchpin holding together our connectivity with the most important people to our business - our staff and customers.

Use social media to keep your customers engaged. We all have phones with camera and video facilities – share your knowledge with quick video updates online via Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram. Move the seminars you had planned onto videocall technology with Zoom, Skype or Hangouts. Events don’t have to stop because they can’t be done in-person. People are there for the content, not the delivery method.

Usually the video content we create for clients featuring in-person interviews is crafted to deliver a certain message. A lot of companies will be able to create such content themselves, but may need help, so lean on your network, speak to those who may be able to help. Working with a company that already understands your business will make a huge difference to the alignment of that content to your brand. This is important as your content should feel like it’s coming from you; that it serves as a suitable replacement for those in-person meetings that your customers are used to.

If, as we do, you work in a building with other businesses, look at which of them could support you with this. Offer your expertise in return – many collaborations have been borne out of adversity.

The need to communicate remains; if anything it’s become more important because the day-to-day opportunities we have been used to are no longer available. It’s tough, it’s stressful, but in some ways it’s exciting to see how we can adapt and keep the wheels turning.

Luke Yerbury is Managing Director of Brand Calibre, based at Glasgow’s The Whisky Bond