While people are crying some set of people are exceedingly happy. When others are experiencing economic misfortune, others are experiencing economic fortunes. The world functions through what they call trends.

 In our economic society, the coffin maker is very happy when people die regularly. This is because the death of many people means increase in sales, revenue and profitability for the coffin business. Why won’t they be happy when it is their turn to smile to the banks to cash out.

 The mechanic (an expert who fixes cars) is in business when he has broken cars to fix. That means the pain of car owners is a great joy to the mechanic business. What an ironic world. But these guys are there to fix economic frictions. They solve great problems and provide great value.

 The same economic trend is currently happening to the global economy caused by the coronavirus pandemic. While some are smiling others are wailing. Let us see the businesses that are smiling. In this article we shall also see what to do to plan to adapt in this period.

How The Covid-19 Is Creating Sectoral Opportunities.

The global economic trends created by the covid-19 pandemic has open unusual business opportunities for the following sectors.

1. The Health or Medical Sector.

The most important discussion currently is around the health sector. It is a very critical sector at the moment because health is now the prioritized pursuit of everybody.

This period, health products have massive demands and there might be a shortage in supply which will create a great market gap for entrepreneurs.

 The most important information in the media either social or the press, is how to discover vaccines to cure the Coronavirus pandemic. This will make the health sector firm boom. Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and other health related businesses will flourish this time.

• The Essential Goods Sector.

 The next consideration after health and safety is survival or food. How do we survive without food? We need food at this critical time. This is why governments all over the world have ordered a close down of businesses except the essential goods industry.

 This trend affects the supermarket businesses, filling stations, groceries businesses and some aspects of food related businesses. If there is restriction of movement that means people must eat. This will create high demand for these businesses.

• The Logistics Sector.

This sector is a very important industry that the global trend has positively affected. The aspect of the logistics industry is in the domestic transportation of goods. There must be vehicles that will take care of the transportation of food products and health products to the above sectors in order to keep supply constants.

 So, the logistics industry is in the supply equation of these businesses. So, this means that the logistics business will experience a boom in demand due to this trend.

• Market Friction Opportunities.

Surely, the pandemic has created frictions in the market. Friction is simply the problems in the market that must be solved economically or entrepreneurially. Some of such opportunities are the demand for hand sanitizers. Some entrepreneurs have started manufacturing hand sanitizers and nose masks

 The greatest of the friction is the need to discover a vaccine to covid-19 that is causing economic and financial crisis all over the world. What opportunities are you seeing? Comment below;

 What about the people and business affected negatively, what should they do?

 I know that this trend has caused many businesses to close, due to the shutdown of businesses by the order of the governments. This is the right time to rethink and adapt in order to strive and thrive in this storm. If your job and your business is affected then do the following;

• Job Rethinking Strategy.

I have been an advocate that one source of income is good but not suitable for employees. It is like a stool that has one stand, it will collapse when the stand is cut.

 If you have lost your job, you need to strategize your career by ensuring you have what to fall back to anytime. That means, it is time to plan to learn a skill. Learn a skill that you can use as a side hustle. Alternatively, you can have an investment that generates a passive source of income.

• Business Model Rethinking Strategy.

How can you remain in your business in this period? It will be a disaster for you, your employees, investor and family if your business folds. It means the unemployment in your country will rise and investors’ funds will go down the drain.

 Rethinking your business model is adjusting and improving the way your business creates value in order to adapt to the trend. 

As I advise a friend that he can leverage technology to digitize some part of his business and adhere to health measures in other aspects of his business he can not automate. Do the same in your business. In case, you need a digital platform, my company Codecitty can handle that for your business professionally. Reach me now

 It is not the strongest species that survives in a habitat but it is the one that can adapt. The eagles learn how to hunt in the storm. It has become relevant to learn how to hunt in the storm too.  

Nwa Ngene is a small stream that ran through Fegge, Onitsha. My mother always tells of how they used to go there as small children to kill small fishes, wash their clothes, bathe, swim and do other playful things children do in that kind of stream. She said the stream was always dirty because, apart from being a “playground” for children, people walk through it when they want to take the short cut from Fegge to Ose Market. So Nwa Ngene is not where people fetch drinking water, officially, but those children bathing and swimming in the water still drink it, and people living around fetch from it for domestic use; but it is not considered hygienic anyway. However, my mother is always quick to remind me that they never drank Nwa Ngene. But then, Anambra people have this adage that says, “A gbarusia Nwa Ngene, e kulu Nwa Ngene nwuo”, which literally means that “you will still drink from Nwa Ngene even after you polluted it”. This is a way of saying that the system one destroyed will be needed by one later.

The “Nwa Ngene” irony brings our mind to what is happening in Nigeria today – the destroyed system is now giving solace to those that destroyed it.

Everyone knows that Nigeria is battling with a lot of challenges – the education system is substandard; the medical sector is in a sad state; finance is a mess; judiciary is a joke; power sector is epileptic; everything is crumbling. In fact, Nigeria has been stripped of her dignity and left bare to be mocked by other nations; thanks to our past and present leaders and some public office holders.

Education in Nigeria is considered, or is rather known to be of low standard. This is not to say that Nigerians are not intelligent, because that will be a fallacy. The problem is that our education sector has been short-funded and is therefore not as effective as it is supposed to be. It is not considered important enough to be given utmost priority in the national budget. Even the little funds earmarked for it are stolen by public officers, who wouldn’t mind seeing half-baked graduates released by our schools because their own children are studying in the best universities in the world (and their tuition and expensive lifestyles sponsored by stolen public funds). Today, our education system is going down the drain, instead of improving.

Graduates of Nigerian higher institutions are not considered good enough by many countries of the world. For instance, a medical doctor that studied and practiced in Nigeria cannot practice medicine when he finds himself in Canada. He will have to subject himself to further training, examinations and so on, before he is considered qualified to touch any Canadian citizen. This is because, over there, they believe that Nigerian medical schools are not of good standard. But today, those doctors considered unqualified by the Global North are the ones battling COVID-19 in Nigeria (and they’re doing great jobs at that).

Placing COVID-19, Nigerian education system and the medical sector side by side will give you a clear and valid instance of the irony of Nwa Ngene adage. If you have followed the NCDC reports on confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria, you will realise that the majority of the victims are “returning travellers”, some of whom are our top public office holders (past and present) and some of their relatives. There are still some unconfirmed tested cases and some yet to submit themselves to be tested even after exposing themselves to the virus.

But then, the irony here is that these top public officers had the chance of putting our educational and medical sectors in order, but they didn’t. Right now, those sectors they ignored are going to give them solace in their time of need. The doctors that will manage their cases are the ones trained in unfunded sub-standard Nigerian schools, which the officers said were not good enough for their children; and the hospitals they were taken to were the unequipped ones they abandoned for overseas medical attention. What a life!

As we wish our office holders quick recovery, we pray for them to use this period to note down what needs to be done to set our systems working properly. We pray to them to remember that in their time of need, outsiders were not there to help them. We pray that as they leave their sick beds, they should go back to the deliberation table and plan properly on how to move Nigeria forward. They should remember that there’s no place like home.

NB: NCDC also needs to check on returnees and public officers in other parts of the country before this virus spreads beyond control.