The Furniture Practice Ltd: A Report on COVID-19's Impact on Business

This report presents a literature review evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on the operations and profitability of small businesses, using The Furniture Practice Ltd as a case study. The introduction highlights the significant economic impact of the pandemic on small businesses, emphasizing challenges to sustainability and profitability. The literature review explores the challenges faced, including money management, client dependence, and the need for digitalization. It examines the impact of the pandemic on revenue, employment, and supply chains. The report also provides recommendations for overcoming these challenges, such as leveraging social media, offering credit over refunds, fostering relationships with investors, and encouraging effective employee engagement. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the importance of adapting to ensure business success and profitability during and after the pandemic.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Table of Contents
TOPIC.........................................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................7

TOPIC
To evaluate the impact of COVID 19 issues in operations and profitability of small businesses. A
case study on “The Furniture Practice Ltd.”
INTRODUCTION
COVID 19 and vitality in economic had impacted significantly on small businesses
within the world. In terms of small businesses COVID 19 is presented as a shock because it
affected the small business sustainability and profitability. To complete this project report on
impact of COVID 19 issues on small business researcher used The Furniture Practice Ltd by
using literature review. This is a small enterprise in UK having 57 working staff in which 37%
are male and 63% are female (The Furniture Practice Ltd, 2021). This company will produce
furniture and furniture related services to architects and designers for generating corporate
clients. In this firstly investigator evaluate the challenges of COVID 19 that affect profitability of
The Furniture Practice Ltd. At last is reflects the suggestion to overcome the issues or challenges
of COVID 19 on small business so that they enjoy high profitability and sustainability within
marketplace (Tkach and Kurpayanidi, 2020).
MAIN BODY
LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review refers to the survey of scholarly articles that provides the huge
information and data on specific topic that a researcher want to learn and understand. Literature
review is to done as collecting secondary source of information on specific topic that is issues of
COVID 19 in small business. To generate the knowledge on specific topic the literature review is
to be presented below on “issue of COVID 19 in small business i.e. The Furniture Prcatice Ltd.”
To understand the impact of COVID 19 on small business
According to the viewpoint of “Lanna Deamer” small and medium size businesses are the
lifeblood of the UK economy. Due to COVID 19 small businesses highly impacted that majorly
affect the country economy and GDP. The effect of COVID 19 crises are highly crushed on

small businesses performance in UK and in an immense manner. Due to the pandemic situation
of COVID 19 lots of small businesses suffered in immediate drops of customers that affect the
bottom line of continue trading. The spread of COVID 19 create emotional challenge for small
business in terms of maintaining financial resources, human resources effectively. The impact of
COVID 19 place a severe impact on revenue of small businesses due to this that type of
businesses cannot sustain for a longer period of time in marketplace. Global small business
platform states the impact of COVID 19 on UK small businesses employment and revenue. In
coronavirus period of time job retention schemes are reduced that felt across the country. In the
current environment of COVID 19, making payment promptly by supply chain is very vital for
immediate survival and future survival of small business. But small businesses cannot receive the
payment because of lacking of financial resources in market this will affect negatively on
wellbeing of sustainability (Abuselidze and Slobodianyk, 2019). Therefore, issue of COVID 19,
collapsing the demand that affects in managing inventory of small business. In terms of small
business, government rarely implement rules and regulation but in the period of COVID 19
many government rules are flaunt in the business industry that creates difficult for small business
to reaching its targets on time which is based on generating high profitability.
To evaluate the challenges of COVID 19 that affect profitability of The Furniture Practice
Ltd
As per the viewpoint of William Boosalis, (2020), there are several challenges of COVID
19 that affects the profitability of small businesses. It is very essential for business owners and
manager to examine the challenges so that they would reformulate the business operations
effectively and efficiently. In terms of The Furniture Practice Ltd that is a small business,
manager and owner evaluate the challenges that occur due to COVID 19 are presented below:
Money management- The biggest challenge that was faced by small businesses due to
COVID 19 is money management. Due to this mainly small businesses lost their employees
through layoffs, changing the hours of operations, furloughs. COVID 19 has magnified the major
challenge because due to this many industries have closed their doors for businesses (Hubbard
and Strain, 2020). This pandemic situation has created an immediate impact on operations of
small businesses because of low monetary resources they cannot deal in pandemic situation

within market. Due to low monetary resources companies are doing compensate with less
employees because of this local economics will suffer.
Client dependence- It is another major challenge that was faced by small businesses
understands the client base at the time of COVID 19. In terms of small businesses, they are
working in smaller area and only being dependent on one demographic region that creates
consequence towards long term growth. In the era of COVID 19 being demographic strong is
highly essential to get more clients’ base and it the major challenge for The Furniture Practice
Ltd because it does not exist in global market. It would affect profitability of small business.
Going digital- Going digital is one the best trend in recent business environment that are
useful to attract the large number of audience. This trend is very crucial for small business to get
sustainable results in business industry. However going digitalization needs more financial
resources to build a strong image in customers mind to inform the customer’s new updates
related to company (Storr and et. al., 2021). Due to COVID 19, investing cost on digitalization
affects other operations of small firms. Hence it is the major challenge that was faced by The
Furniture Practice Ltd during COVID 19.
Unlike Larger organization, Small businesses are not legally obliged to file their profit
and loss account this creates difficulties to analyses the profitability and cash flows. In case of
COVID 19, it is very essential to examine the cash flows and profitability so that firm will do
investment according to that.
To examine the several recommendation to overcome with the impact of COVID 19 issues
in The Furniture Practice Ltd
As per the viewpoint of “(Brammer, Branicki and Linnenluecke, 2020)” there are several
recommendations that helps small business at the time of COVID 19 so that they will gain high
profitable and sustainable results. To provide admirable results for organization some aspects are
helpful that are presented below:
 Take the use of social media and amplify messages- It is one of the best
recommendation for small business during the period of COVID 19. According to this,
The Furniture Practice Ltd highly spending on their social media accounts for collecting

customer loyalty so that they generate high profits that help in overcoming the high
spending. Hence use of social media supports company to gather get valuable results like
long term survival.
 Choose credits over refunds-In the period of COVID 19 companies are preventing
from providing the product and services that customer customers because of payment
issues. But it is recommended that The Furniture Practice Ltd focus on choosing credit
rather than refund the products or services policies as it helps in attracting large number
of customers that develops brand image in marketplace even in the tough situation
(Akpan, Udoh and Adebisi, 2020).
 Organize expert friends and investors to share knowledge- In the period of COVID
19 it is recommended that small businesses owner and manager focus on developing the
relation with investors within the industry so that they provide expert advice along with
financial resources that helps in sustaining longer period of time.
 Offers free office hours- It is a recommendation that helps The furniture Practice Ltd.
In this company provide flexible working hours to their workers along with working
from home so that they work effectively in interacting with clients and partners
appropriately.
 Encourage employees to working effectively- In terms of small businesses, owner
emphasis on creating friendly culture so that they focus on creating more customers via
online media so that issues related to shortage of finance is to be resolved. This would
prominently help in long term sustainability.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is to be concluded that COVID 19 impacted majorly on several
business especially small businesses due to this their sustainability and profitability would be
affected. This literature review studied the impact of COVID 19 on small businesses along with
challenges of pandemic situation of COVID 19 on profitability of small business. This report
also acknowledges the several recommendations to overcome the impact of COVID 19 issues so
that firm will lead out success and profit in business industry.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Abuselidze, G. and Slobodianyk, A., 2019, December. Pandeconomic crisis and its impact on
small open economies: a case study of COVID-19. In Energy Management of Municipal
Transportation Facilities and Transport (pp. 718-728). Springer, Cham.
Akpan, I.J., Udoh, E.A.P. and Adebisi, B., 2020. Small business awareness and adoption of state-
of-the-art technologies in emerging and developing markets, and lessons from the
COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, pp.1-18.
Brammer, S., Branicki, L. and Linnenluecke, M.K., 2020. COVID-19, Societalization, and the
Future of Business in Society. Academy of Management Perspectives. 34(4). pp.493-507.
Hubbard, R.G. and Strain, M.R., 2020. A business fiscal response to a COVID-19 recession. AEI
Paper & Studies, p.1l.
Storr, V.H., and et. al., 2021. Essential or not? Knowledge problems and COVID‐19 stay‐at‐
home orders. Southern Economic Journal.
Tkach, D.V.Y. and Kurpayanidi, K.I., 2020. SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT THE IMPACT OF
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS
ENTITIES. Theoretical & Applied Science, (11), pp.1-4.
Online
Boosalis. W., 2020. The Top Five Challenges Small Businesses Face During the COVID-19
Pandemic. [Online], Available through:
<https://www.biz2credit.com/blog/2020/09/03/the-top-five-challenges-small-businesses-
face-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/>
The Furniture Practice Ltd, 2021. [Online], Available through: < https://www.b.co.uk/company-
profile/?The-Furniture-Practice-108431>