Pivots in Pandemics: 3 Businesses in Latin America Who Shifted Strategy

When COVID-19 hit, it negatively affected thousands of businesses in Latin America. In Brazil alone, over 1.3 million businesses had to suspend activities, while over 716,000 businesses went out of business.

In order to survive these difficult times, many businesses had to make tough decisions. These decisions involved cutting costs, shutting down certain operations, and layoffs.

However, many businesses have found a way to avoid these harsh outcomes. They found a way to recreate their business models and strategies to meet new consumer demands. 

Let’s take a look into how 3 businesses in Latin America successfully pivoted and found ways to survive the pandemic!

What is a Business Pivot?

To begin, let’s talk about what a business pivot is. A pivot is used to help businesses find opportunities to expand revenue, recover from a financially tough situation, or survive competition. It is some type of change the business makes once its original business model is unsustainable.

3 Businesses who Shifted Their Strategy

COVID-19 has created tough financial times for many businesses around the world, so in order to survive, many of them had to shift their strategy and pivot. 

Here are 3 businesses in Latin America that have successfully pivoted in the pandemic.

Fitco

Fitco is a Peru-based company that provides management and retention software to help fitness and sports centers grow. 

Due to COVID-19, many of these fitness and sports centers were forced to shut down in person operations. To avoid detrimental outcomes for their clients, Fitco had to come up with a new plan.

Fitco quickly launched Fitco Live, which is an online platform that allows gyms to continue delivering services and attract new customers through online classes.

Pivoting by creating this online service has helped Fitco and its clients survive during these extremely hard times.

Frubana

Frubana is a Colombia-based company that eases the process of purchasing farm-fresh food for restaurants and small retailers.

When Colombia got hit by COVID-19, Furbana found an opportunity to help both their company and their consumers. Frubana introduced Club Frubana, which provided online resources to help restaurants:

• Shop for supplies
• Digitized their menus
• Search for job opportunities
• Stay up to date on industry news and events

When Colombia issued a lockdown in response to COVID-19, Furbana took things a step further and launched Fresco, which helped consumers receive groceries at home.

Both of these platforms launched by Frubana in response to COVID-19 created great growth for the company and are still widely used by consumers due to its ease and convenience.

Poliglota

Poliglota is a Chile-based company that sets up face-to-face meetings for clients in cafes to learn new languages.

Prior to COVID-19, Poliglota’s business was booming as it had over 7,000 registered students and networked with hundreds of cafes. Unfortunately, when COVID-19 hit, they could no longer arrange face-to-face meetings.

Poliglota quickly thought of a way to pivot and in just 2 weeks, it completely transformed its service into a virtual experience. Now that the service is fully online, it is able to serve people in all parts of Chile.

This pivot was so successful that it actually increased sales by 25% per month since May!

Some Ways Your Business can Pivot

Every business is different, so the way each pivots may vary slightly. However, there are a few general moves that your business can make to pivot to a better path.

Consider these moves to successfully pivot:

• Make the solution simple by focusing on a key feature
• Refine your target audience demographic
• Alter your pricing and competitive positioning
• Seek alternative technology platforms
• Adapt to new customer demands

Continue Building your Business with Colibri

COVID-19 has created unprecedented times for businesses, so it is essential to alter your strategy and pivot in order to continue growing. At Colibri Content, we are here to help you get through these crazy times and come out as strong as ever!

If you are looking for help to build your business in Latin America or if you need help finding a successful way to pivot in a way specific to your business, contact us at Colibri Content!