Muslim Business Founders Advice On Preparing For Global Crisis

The global pandemic of Covid-19 has caused people to fear, and some have been under lockdown. This means that the financial and economic impact in countries affected by Covid-19 is tremendous, as consumption, capital spending and exports reduce unexpectedly in such a short time frame.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expecting that the global pandemic will cause a global recession in 2020 and is expecting a global economic recovery in 2021.

For business owners, especially small business owners, we need to find out how to plan for a financial crisis, in order to reduce the impact it will have on us. To do so, we spoke with several well-known Muslim business founders to seek their sound advice. These are people who have been many storms and came out triumphant.

How To Fight The Economic Impact of Covid-19

Business Advice From Saiful Nang, Founder of Saiful Nang Academy, Candid Syndrome International and the list goes on.

Saiful is a serial entrepreneur who is blessed with the ability to transform neglected youth into thriving entrepreneurs and respected members of society.

Covid 19 is the most dramatic trigger. In a normal scenario, there are businesses that thrive too fast or just surviving. Even countries they are country that is winning and countries that is losing. But this time around, the whole world has collapsed and all kinds of businesses have collapsed.

Businesses need to hit the pause button for a moment. Reduce your overhead as low as possible so you can and keep afloat. In a storm, you can still make it to shore if you are brave and skillful enough. But this is not a storm it is a tornado. If you try to sail now you are heading for trouble. So bring down your sail, sit in the boat quietly and stay afloat. This tornado will soon pass, probably sooner than we expected. So hang tight.

“I’ve gone through 2 economic crises before and this is the third. This uncertainty will soon end. We pray that it ends sooner than we expected. Whatever it is do not set your sail.

In times like this, the debt-free businesses will survive and those that operate on lending will usually go under. No good advice can be given. Be safe, we cannot fight against the power of our nature. We just serve and pray a lot.

How To Plan: Hope For The Best, Prepare For The Worst

Business Advice From Saiful Islam, Co-Founder and The Marketing Director of Muslim Influencer Network, a Digital Agency focusing on Muslim Influencers based in the UK.

I’d say that the most important thing is for people not to lose hope. It’s a great time to really think about the things that are most important in life – our faith and our family.

And also assess whether the way we lived our lives, has been right.

Financials will come and go, and that’s what this situation has taught us. But what we must then do is work with our local communities to seek help – as people of ethnic background sometimes we can be too proud to seek help. But it’s important we do. Then explore thoroughly what our local government is doing to ease the situation.

Finally, creating a risk mitigation system is necessary.

Explore digital and social media means to see if you can take elements of your business and still deploy them that way.

And know, for the believer every situation is good, and the future will be better than what came in the past.

LISTEN to Podcast Interview with Saiful Islam here

Move Towards Digital and Improve Your Pricing Strategy

Business Advice From Fateh Ali, CEO & Co-founder of CollabDeen, A deep-tech Mobile Platform for Global Islamic Economy based in Singapore

If you are a legacy business, see how fast you can build a digital strategy and start building a digital community. As a business owner if you want to survive and/or thrive during the coming recession, then you may want to consider a string of pivots in your business model focusing on remote/online collaboration

One thing that you must revisit is your pricing strategy, and start optimization of your product pricing and understand values that can be provided now

My suggestion to our business owners is that their product pricing strategy should be a function of their competitors’ break-even.

The existing Halal lifestyle is just the tip of an iceberg. The true potential opens with the consumption of greatest technology where consumers and brands are able to build their own community digitally where they can connect, communicate and collaborate at one single ecosystem.

Get Through This Crisis Together With Your Staff & Customers

Business Advice From Mohamed Geraldez, an entrepreneur, author, speaker and investor based in the United State.

Geraldez founded the largest Non Silk Vegan tie company Jaan J after coming studying Shariah in the Middle East.

I think we are all struggling. We should watch our expenses tightly, and everyone from the CEO to customer representative should take fewer hours and/or pay so that the entire staff can get through this present situation.

We have to do our best to make sure that everybody stay’s afloat, We are all in this together, This is something which is unprecedented and many do not know how to respond. But just keep in mind that InsyaAllah this will soon pass. Above all, this experience should make us increase our faith and make us closer to Allah.

Farah I, Writer & Researcher

Farah Ishak is a Content Writer at Halalop. She grew up in the United Kingdom where she obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Management. Later, she completed her MBA and held senior-level positions in Malaysian based MNC. She left the corporate world to be with her young kids. She is passionate about issues concerning Muslim women, Startups and Muslim businesses in general.