The Malaysian government has announced the forth extension of movement control order (MCO) which has started since March 18, 2020 (Prime Minister's Special Message, 2020) as the preventive measure in response to Covid-19 pandemic in the country. There have been several reports in the media about the impact of the MCO on small businesses. Microentrepreneurs, for example, experience loss of daily income due to disruptive supply chain resulting from the closure of supporting sectors, besides lack of workers and declining in cash reserves.

The two main areas from the entrepreneurs’ perspectives are:

(i) to understand the business continuity strategy and

(ii) the business recovery plan employed by microenterprise in coping with crisis impact.

The Covid-19 crisis can be regarded as a difficult situation for microenterprises due to its abruptic threats. There is no systematic or formal management to crisis employed by micro-enterprises; nonetheless, their responses towards crisis are more ad-hoc to reduce the impact. Entrepreneurs seemed to demonstrate their ability to survive in their business by undertaking business continuity approaches and recovery strategies, especially in terms of product delivery and marketing. Many entrepreneurs began to shift to alternative approaches to continue their business operation. Among the alternative business continuity strategy adopted by entrepreneurs during the MCO period is by selling and promoting their products via social media and mobile applications like Facebook and Whatsapp.

Business Continuity Strategy During Crisis

Entrepreneurs employ multiple synchronous strategies to ensure continuous operation of their business during MCO such as:

(i)shorten the supply chain through centralised synchronous distributors,

(ii)produce emerging product to meet current customers needs (customers are looking for essential foods, and cleaning and sanitary products during MCO),

(iii)use digitalised marketing through mobile applications and social media, such as Facebook and WhatsApp, (iv)employ ‘collect on delivery’ or ‘cash on demand’ transaction for the sale of goods, and

(v)receive payment via bank transfer or e-wallet.

Thus synchronous distribution approach allows entrepreneurs, especially in the agri-based business to earn decent income during a crisis. This strategy is parallel to omni-marketing channel approach which suggests the use of several channels in distributing goods to the customer, for example through distributors, mobile apps, and physical store, is more beneficial than single and independent channel.

Other Business stratergies:

1. Business from home

2 Business from home

3 Self-deliver

4 Community basedbusiness

5Using mobile apps

6 Using multichannel approach

7 mobile apps (e-hailing, e-bazaar, WhatsApp, Facebook)

8 hire private runner Plan for ‘new normal’ business

9Cash on delivery

10 Digital marketing

11Restructuring of business model/ concept

12Revising business plan (especially on cash flow and budgeting)

13Investment on new business

14Updating customer database