In the first part of the blog, we talked about some of the top digital businesses in COVID-19 that have embraced digitalization, and found a means to survive and succeed despite the blow of lockdown.
But, my dear entrepreneur friend, the splashes of digitalization have even reached the sectors, which had been behind the lights. Say for instance, medical research. The industry has been there for quite a long time now. However, with the touch of digitalization and its core functioning, it is successfully breaking its previous records in terms of revenue, subscribers, traffic, and value.
In this blog, we have got you covered with some more digital businesses in COVID-19 along with the sectors that have been influenced significantly during the lockdown and for the better.
Presenting the top digital businesses in COVID-19.
Well, we have all seen the spikes in the gym membership during the New Years. However, lockdown did impact the gym and personal health training businesses that are running offline. Since the probability of passing on infection is high in gyms and other fitness centres, these businesses would have to look elsewhere for survival.
And by elsewhere, we mean the digital space.
Numerous fitness coaches have already taken to the online channels and are continuously being able to widen their subscribers’ base. However, it is during the outbreak of COVID-19 that the fitness industry worth USD 100 Bn began dramatically scrambling from offline to online mode. We have seen a surge in fitness app development projects and digital businesses in COVID-19 since the beginning of the crisis.
And, this is not it. Taking the fitness industry online does not only mean resorting to YouTube or social media platforms to conduct live workout sessions. Fitness coaches have considered developing a dedicated fitness coach booking app or a website to run successful digital businesses in COVID-19 and even after its effect fades out.
As individuals are striving to maintain their fitness regime during the COVID-19 crisis, Nike is reaching out to more potential customers using its fitness app. The app consists of a library of over 185 workouts ranging from the duration of 15-minutes to 60-minutes.
During the crisis, when all the physical fitness centres have been closed for an indefinite period of time, Nike has been the inspiration for fitness workout app development to many. It dropped its subscription plans to accommodate new users for its premium Nike Training Club app. The app now offers yoga classes, targeted training programs, and full-equipment workout sessions for free to all users.
Since coronavirus is found to be affecting people with low immunity the most, individuals are adding a fitness regime in their schedule. Most of these are beginners, and that’s when the on-demand fitness apps are found to be thriving.
Beachbody on Demand is an online fitness platform that helps users meet their ideal body goals. During the time of COVID-19 crisis, the company has recorded an increment in its subscriber base by 200%.
Lockdown has brought about a significant change in the way knowledge is being disseminated to students. Schools, colleges, universities, coaching classes, and similar educational institutions are witnessing empty benches. In some parts of the world, exams of students have been postponed.
These are the times, when either the education sector would have fallen victim to the crisis or could have emerged more strongly out of
it. And it did the latter.
Today, professors are looking at Google Meet and other group video calling apps to conduct an online class. However, this can be a temporary solution. There are no features to underpin the actual purpose of knowledge sharing.
On the flip side, there are some of the edtech startups that are optimally using the lockdown scenario for thriving their businesses. Udemy is one among these eLearning mobile applications. Udemy announced the launch of a free online learning drive, wherein users can login to the website and access the course of their choice. A lot of edTech app development in COVID-19 is underway.
ClassDojo is an online educational app, available for free. It connects the students, teachers, and parents through a single platform. There are a number of sharing options–images and videos–that makes information sharing easy.
ClassDojo is constantly working on its scalability to accommodate even a large number of students without any technical glitch. During the lockdown, it is helping many educational institutions to occupy a virtual room and conduct classes. It is the kind of an LMS providing business inspiration to other edTech stakeholders for LMS app development in COVID-19.
Engagement of students in the classroom is another story to reflect upon. Now when students are sitting at their homes with distractions to the very core of it, they tend to lose focus on the lectures.
TopHat is the solution that helps professors engage their students better. It is more of an online test-kinda app that enables interactive learning sessions. Recently, TopHat made it to the news for launching a learning platform, powerful enough to enhance the learning experience. Besides this, TopHat has also launched their first cloud-based educational engagement software for higher education.
Lockdown has been imposed on people and their movement. However, essential goods and services are still available.
And medicines and pharmaceuticals fall in the priority list. It may be surprising to know that despite there being no restriction on the pharmacies, the number of shoppers buying medicines from local stores has slumped.
Wondering what incited this slump?
Well, the concept of chemist home deliveries is not a new one. Post the disruption of Uber, the pharmaceutical and medicine niche also followed suit to rethink innovation in the sector. This gave leeway to many chemists and pharmacists to opt for medicine delivery app development in COVID-19 to cut down on the rush to their stores and be able to cater to a mass.
Today, there are dedicated eCommerce marketplaces for pharmaceuticals and users are responding positively to it. Lockdown further added an interesting angle for the sector. The ‘no contact’ medicine delivery has gained significant traction and is likely to persist even when waves of COVID-19 ebbs. We might see the advent of more digital businesses in COVID-19 in the sector.
Walgreens is an American company operating as the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the U.S., just after CVS Health. The company has a mark in the sector for filling prescriptions, photo services, health information, and health and wellness products. It holds 9,277 pharmacy stores in the U.S., as of writing. It specializes in doorstep delivery of medicine and pharmaceuticals across the U.S. The company made a switch to the digital channel at the right time through its pharmacy app development.
Recently, Walgreens made it to the headlines for its thoughtfulness during the COVID-19 crisis. The company announced that it is waving off the delivery fees for the eligible prescriptions during this situation.
MyMedKit is an Australian company, offering on-demand prescription service. The company specializes in delivering prescription-based medicines and over-the-counter medical supplies.
While the company was established and quite popular even before the fear of COVID-19 penetrated in, the pandemic deserves some credit for the increased sales of MyMedKit. During the lockdown, when the fear of being in contact with an infected person is at a peak, MyMedKit has taken a ‘no contact’ approach to deliver medicines.
Physical barriers and self-isolation are, in turn, impacting the mental health of individuals. There’s work to handle, household chores, and the feeling of being locked up. All of this has been taking a toll on mental health.
In such a case, digital channels have emerged as a solution. There are therapists on-demand that help individuals cope up with the situation and turn off negative voices. Besides this, there are several online relaxation and meditation videos available for individuals to access.
However, the real disruption in the sector are the self-improvement apps in COVID-19 that handle the trivial mental issues of individuals such as improving the mood, motivating them to work, inducing positive thinking, etc. In addition to this, several online apps offer to cure insomnia and sleep deprivation by calming down the mind.
Be Intent gained popularity in the personal growth and wellness sector in a short span of nearly six years. Be Intent recently launched a mobile application for users to deal with stress, improve concentration level, and get better sleep.
Since mental health has taken a backseat during the lockdown, the company is spreading awareness about the mental wellbeing of remote-working employees. The company has zoomed in focus on the multicultural groups and organizations, to create a conducive and stress-free working environment.
Ten Percent Happier is a meditation app featuring solutions to mental distress through meditation course videos, sleep meditations, audio lessons, coaching, and so on. In order to encourage the individuals to focus on their mental well being, the company has resources, consisting of interviews with experts, practitioners, teachers, and gurus.
Recently, the Business Insider reviewed the app and added it to the list of the top five meditation apps for boosting mental health.
The gig economy was spreading all across the world from the U.S., even before the pandemic. According to stats, nearly 57 Mn individuals in the U.S. are working as independent contractors or freelancers.
This means that the demand for remote working app development has already been there for a long time. However, social distancing and imposition of lockdown further encouraged organizations to set up remote working facilities. As a result, there has been positive changes in the usage pattern of email, chat modules, file sharing software, and eMeeting solutions.
Evernote is an online organization tool for all members of the team to be on the same page. As of writing, over 225 Mn of individuals use the app to boost their productivity. Despite being a special app for the telecommuters, the company offers special discounts for students.
Teams can chat and share documents, files, images, and videos to collaborate on a project. During the lockdown, the company has recorded an increase in the number of paid users.
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Google Meet took the place of the conference room during the lockdown. It has emerged as a cost-effective video conferencing solution.Google Meet is a bit more convenient to use as it has a G Suite account. Most of the organizations already have accounts of their employees activated, and so there is no need to download a special app.
Google Meet allows users to join calls using an access code. The meetings are limited to 60-minute. As COVID-19 hits organizations hard, Google Meet announces a freebie tier for enterprises to help them conduct meetings.
The secret of its popularity lies in its features
Thanks to Coronavirus, the entire world is embracing the trend of ‘No Contact’. Essential goods are being sanitized, as these pass through a number of suppliers and distributors. In such a scenario, people are being equally conscious of their transactions. Individuals are trying to pay in full, without having to receive the change or are switching to the digital payments.
While cash payments are only limited to some of the local stores of essential commodities, the switch to online commerce is indeed driving the shift in the way individuals conduct transactions. Numerous digital businesses in COVID-19 such as Google Pay, PayPal, Amazon Pay, etc. are extending their services to offer as user-friendly features as possible.
The probability is, this temporary inconvenience to switch from cash payment to online payment would bring significant opportunities for the digital payment sector, as a whole. As per the reports, there has been an increase of straight 15% in the use of digital payments, as compared to the last year. The rate of digital payment app development will increase at a significant rate.
If there’s one app that can help you do more than just transaction, it is PayPal. The online digital payment app can be used by individuals and businesses alike. As of writing, PayPal has over 300 customers and merchants working in over 200 markets.
During the pandemic, the company has financially helped over 24 Mn merchants by granting them small loans and deferring processing fees. As a result, many more merchants and business owners have signed up to use PayPal.
TransferWise emerged as a viable solution amidst the hassles of conducting cash transactions. TransferWise is a UK-based digital payment company that enables online transactions, without any restriction of the boundaries. One of the most interesting benefits that the company offers is in regards to the transaction overseas.
Recently, TransferWise has seen a surge in the number of transactions, given the lockdown effect, wherein individuals are conscious of getting in contact with even the physical currency. On the back of the company’s impressive performance since 2011, BlackRock and a few large investment firms have announced the acquisition of a stake worth USD 292 Mn in the company.
Though dietary supplements have been an integral part of the fitness regime of sportsmen and gym-goers, other individuals used the supplements only rarely. These are the times that dietary supplements are back in the spotlight, as coronavirus is said to affect people with low immunity level more.
While the overall outlook of the dietary supplement industry is bright, products inside the immunity realm are emerging as the real winners. As a result, enormous opportunities are available for businesses in the dietary supplement industry.
With the touch of digitalization, the dietary supplement industry has further realized its potential and reach, and a number of digital businesses in COVID-19 are ready to launch and relaunch their brands.
Founded in 1968, Now Foods has been a leading natural supplements company in the industry. During the time of the founding, healthy food and supplements were not as mainstream as they are today. However, with time and increased focus on preventive care over curative care, dietary supplements started gaining witnessing a surge in their sales. Given the massive reach of the digital platforms, the company realized that it was time to adopt digital channels for acquisition of new customers.
During the lockdown, Now Foods is taking ample care to increase its base of subscribers and customers. On similar lines, the company announced that every new email subscriber would receive a coupon worth USD 5 by simply signing through the company’s website.
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Lucky Vitamin homes over 35,000 products related to dietary supplements. The company offers products at a discounted price and free shipping on natural products, beauty products, bathing products, health foods, nutritional supplements, and vitamins.
Even Lucky Vitamin took to the front during the time of crisis and announced support to the frontline corona workers by offering them free membership for a period of six months. This usually costs USD 49 per year. The move has significantly shifted the attention of customers towards the company, and the sales have been recording new heights.
These are the times when health and wellbeing are the top priority for all of us. Saying that the insurance sector is performing extremely well would not be an exaggeration, looking at how COVID-19 is gradually raising the mortality rate.
Analyzing the rush to avail health insurance and to claim it, numerous new insurance companies in the sector are leveraging the prowess of digitalization to accommodate more customers without any room for manual error. On the other hand, the already established digital businesses in COVID-19 are being able to make high gains out of the situation in the sector. Besides this, new businesses are seeking app development for the insurance sector in COVID-19.
United Healthcare is an American health insurance company that offers a spectrum of healthcare products and insurance services. In terms of its revenue recorded in 2019, it is so far enjoying the status of being the largest healthcare company in the world.
When COVID-19 started making rounds in the news, the company announced that it is waiving off the costs for the COVID-19 test kits at some of the approved locations. In addition, the coverage also extends to Medicare Advantage as well as Medicaid plans.
Aetna Inc. is an American firm founded in 1853, selling health insurance as well as related services such as long-term care, pharmaceutical, disability plans, etc. The company works towards providing innovative financial benefits, products, and services to individuals, producers, and healthcare professionals.
While the company does not need an official introduction, however, it is during the times of COVID-19 that it has come to the fore and gained popularity for its thoughtfulness. Aetna announced that it would waive the co-pays that individuals have to make for the diagnosis of COVID-19. The same would include the member costs related to Medicare and Medicaid. On top of it, the company also offers zero co-pay telemedicine facility to its users, regardless of the purpose of the visit.
It is the officials and central authorities of numerous countries across the world that have taken up the responsibility to spread information about the spread of coronavirus. While the press has been doing its job exceptionally, the millennial populace needs information on-the-go.
Given the frequent changes in the number of coronavirus cases and information, leaders of various countries have announced mobile apps and websites that help provide crucial detail to the citizens. Taking a cue from the success of these apps, many digital businesses in COVID-19 have launched private apps with community mobility reports. As a result, the industry is witnessing a boom in the utility app development vicinity.
Camscanner is an online app and web that helps users to turn their smartphones into a scanner. The Times has recognized Camscanner as–One of the Best 50 Apps. The app has witnessed over 300 Mn downloads globally. The app helps users to convert editable texts, and it supports over 17 different languages for professors and students across the world.
During the lockdown, Camscanner ensures that the learning of students is not affected. On similar lines, the company announced that it is offering its premium service for free to the educational institutions until the end of June.
Well, Google Maps has been a constant for a majority of us. Similar to Apple Maps, Google Maps is an in-built app in most of the Android devices.
Google has come to the fore to help individuals by providing them with information about community mobility reports as well as social distancing. As per the popular effect of GDPR, Google Maps announced that it is not invading a user’s privacy while collecting this data.
Since the buzz about coronavirus, medical websites and journals have been filled with the information and the frequently asked questions. A lot has already been published in the newspapers, and individuals seem to take an interest in each of these pieces to be in the known.
As a result, the traffic to the medical research app solutions and digital businesses in COVID-19 have increased significantly. These digital information sources offer instant updates and the most recent development about the spread and effect of COVID-19. These are the digital businesses in COVID-19 that are excelling in the medical research sector.
The well-established digital businesses in COVID-19 are being idolized in the industry and followed.
MedPage Today is an online news portal for healthcare professionals and physicians. Medpage is available as a website and an app for iOS users. MedPage Today consists of specialties with over 30 categories ranging from Allergy and Immunology, Anesthesiology, to Genetics, and Urology.
Recently, developers of Medpage Today teamed up with Thomas-Reuters healthcare to offer disease pathology information and prescription drug monographs.
3D4Medical is a leading 3D technology company that possesses expertise in health and fitness, educational, and medical software. The software helps students, educators, professionals, and institutionalists to leverage the software and get a leeway to access free content.
Recently, 3D4Medical created Complete Anatomy—an advanced 3D anatomy platform with cloud-based technology for users to find minute details about the human anatomy in 3D.
Now it’s time for some exercise.
What’s the first thing that has come to your mind after going through the information?
Well, if you ask me, I would say–if these digital businesses in COVID-19 can excel, so can I. If you think the same, don’t lose this motivation for anything. Rework on your business model, find a digital channel, and launch a digital business in COVID-19.
The effect of coronavirus may be long-lasting, and this is the right time to get started.
Enough motivation for the day? Let’s get to work.