Introduction

Innovation and creativity have become critical components in increasing the viability of
entrepreneurship. Creativity aids in the improvement of established corporate strategies
while innovation can help in the development of the processes and gaining the ideas
that can lead to more marketable products and services (Markovic, Prodanovic and
Mutibaric, 2012). Creative measures during crisis can prevent the economic deployment
thereby creating opportunities for the substantial business growth. This study aims to
critically analyze the role of creativity and innovation in economic development during
the crisis period. The objectives of this study include to critically evaluate the innovative
developments that can be made in order to sustain business growth and to analyze that
how creative and innovative ideas can be prevailed in longer terms.

Critical Analysis
Bird (2019) asserted in their research that entrepreneurship is a strategic tool used by
the large corporations who want to establish their own firm. Entrepreneurship is among
the growth prospects in transitional situations. Intellectual enterprise is the beginning
point for entrepreneurship, and it manifests itself in a variety of ways. According to
Mann and Chan (2011) enterprises that encourage innovation and creativity generate
most efficient outputs. Leveraging innovative product and strategy growth could assist
an organization thrive by encouraging all workers to look for new ways to expand and
innovate. The term “crisis” is made up of two characters, one of which stands for risk
and the other for opportunity. Generating creative and innovative ideas during the crisis
time would not only help the businesses in maintaining the business tantrum but also
would assist them in boosting their economic growth.
Unnikrishnan and Figliozzi (2020) described that the e-commerce sales of United States
have expanded twice during the Covid-19 pandemic such that it outpaced the traditional
brick and mortar business. Furthermore, online sales boomed during the Covid-19
pandemic in such a way that the sales recorded in May 2020 were 78% more than that
were recorded in May 2019. Majority of the people prefer home delivery services rather
than the physical purchasing. The research described that nearly 55% ordered more
home deliveries during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The worldwide health crisis, which began in 2020 has an influence on enterprises of all
sizes in all industries. Regardless of the fact that several enterprises have demonstrated
considerable endurance if not outright survival. Most of the small and medium size
(SME) business owners in the services industry have discovered a new operating niche.
The business owners developed new business methods and techniques of attracting
the consumers during the pandemic such as online retailing, app development for
selling products, offering transaction service etc. which helped them in sustaining their
businesses. These new business strategies would assist small and medium size
enterprises (SMEs) because SMEs have the potential to mitigate the effects of the
pandemic, they can help boost the possibility of conquering the pandemic’s influence as

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small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) have major chance of getting financially hit
because of its limited assets and expertise. Moreover, the author described that these
strategies helped SMEs in keeping their pace with the global world during the crisis
period (Gregurec et al., 2021). The global economy has been devastated by the novel
epidemic. This developing challenge has a significant impact on entrepreneurial
business strategies because it ultimately affects public issues (such as import and
export restrictions, decreasing stock prices, and food shortages) (Bhattacharjeea and
Jahanshahib, 2020; Zhang et al., 2020).
According to Benson and Clay (2004), firms will always face difficulties as a result of
natural disasters and crisis. As a result of recent pandemic the global economy have
been shattered such as the economy of China has been greatly impacted by the Covid-
19 crisis. Individuals are very concerned about their health and security, which has
manifested in significant shifts in their purchasing behavior. During the continuing
Covid-19 crisis the Chinese firms have been severely impacted and started looking for
new marketing strategies (Wang, Hong, Li and Gao, 2020). Moreover the author
emphasize on the economic loss of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) such
as Chinese economy bared a loss of 85% due to Covid-19. Similarly UK showed that
91% of the businesses were impacted and the supplier demand was dropped by 69%.
During the industrial revolution the technologies are developing according to the market
needs. Most of the small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) have been using digital
technologies as a primitive measure such as the use of artificial intelligence which
would reduce the chances of physical contact among people, the using robots for the
supply of goods, and the implementation of blockchain technologies that may use to
drive corporate operations and improve organizational process innovation
(Papadopoulos, Baltas, and Balta, 2020; Viriyasitavat and Hoonsopon, 2019). Fitriasari
(2020) carried out previous research and described in their research that to deal with
the consequences of Covid-19 the small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) and other
organizations are adopting the creativity in business operations and shifting towards
inter alia digital technologies (DT). Mobile and interactive technologies, as well as
Internet of Things (IoT), big data analytics, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology,
latest telecommunication network (5G) technology has become the latest trend during
the Covid-19 pandemic.
Food delivery has altered the manner we consume and has managed to do so in the
time of global pandemic as the sector has developed substantially. Ali, Khalid and
Javed (2021) asserted that online food delivery (OFD) services offers the services in the
global pandemic to the customers where individuals were facilitated with ordering food
directly from the restaurants via mobile applications or through the web pages of the
restaurants and having the product delivered at their doorstep. Moreover, to maintain
the sustainability of the online food services renowned food chains such as McDonalds,
Pizza Hut, KFC, EatEasy, Domino’s and many more started their own mobile
applications providing their customers with the products safely. Furthermore, the online

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food delivery (OFD) market is constantly expanding due to the rapid growth of online
ordering system and possess an impact on the restaurant sector as it provides the
ability to expand enterprise’s growth during the crisis situation, generates a large client
database, and improve staff efficiency attracting more customers during the hard times.
Variety of techniques have been developed with the passage of time in order to keep
the business growth on the track. According to Crick and Crick (2020) offering the
similar (or comparable) services as well as products through different online channels
is the constructive corporative approach to Covid-19 pandemic. This can happen via
digitalization of tangible products and offering technology driven services. The common
example of this method is the cosmetic company of China “Lin Qingxuan” which was
compelled to shutter 40% of its outlets including the Wuhan city due to the sudden
outbreak of Covid-19 due to which 90% of its sales were dropped. In response to this
situation the cosmetic brand developed the strategy of using different beauty experts to
promote their products online using the digital technologies such as WeChat which
connected the consumers directly with organization and the sales were increased by
120%. Another technique for leveraging the business growth in longer term during the
crisis situation as described by Floetgen et al., (2021) is the offering same products
through different infrastructure. Due to the increased demand of the products by the
customers as a result of safety measures organizations were pressurized with the
increase in production in such situation finding a new infrastructure would be more
feasible which requires collaboration with external partners. A common example of this
technique used by Amazon Inc. which added 10,000 new employees in the United
States in order to meet the increased requirements of the online buyers and eventually
Amazon Inc. partnered with ride booking company named Lyft due to this partnership
the demand and delivery charges were decreased dramatically.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, organizations have begun to envisage how the
Covid-19 pandemic will affect the behavior of customer, in general business outcomes
and sentiments. The uncertainty regarding future of an organizations’ business
necessitates the major revision of the relationship structure, both internally as well as
externally. According to Lee et al., (2021), innovation is vital not just in the
pharmaceutical and medical, but also in the other areas of the economy during the era
of Covid-19 pandemic. While the stringent policy response to Covid-19 is required,
businesses are undoubtedly be impacted by it, with both short term as well as long term
implications. Lees, Regueiro and Mahadevan (2020) stated, firms in fast changing
technology industries who invest in the operations of research and development in
response to rising global dangers have been better positioned to support not just for the
survival of near term but also their inventive performance in future to stay competitive.
Ebersberger et al., (2021) stated that innovation and creativity aid in the development of
new methods to improve the existing service and product of an organization during the
period of Covid-19 in order to maximize the profit. Moreover, organizations that have

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been innovated its styles of services and product during the pandemic has gained lot of
success, which may help them in the future as well. According to WANASIDA et al.
(2021) in economies, venture expansion is critical to producing wealth and prosperity.
The entrepreneurs in the world have demonstrated the strong desire and dedication to
expand the businesses. Moreover, creating precise and innovative ideas for the specific
growth tasks has the substantial influence on the venture growth effort, as the key for
the entrepreneurs is to boost their action certainty. Christa et al., (2021) contradict this
point of view, he stated due to the life cycle of the organization endeavor, the
entrepreneurial development ideas and stages might occasionally fail because they
compete with other industries, entrepreneurs may only harvest during the period of pre-
start up. This competition in the future may pose the possible danger to their
organizations, so they purchase a patent to safeguard their interests.
Sampat and Shadlen (2021) stated that the entrepreneurial activity is the major
contributor to the venture growth; consequently, in the difficult times such as period of
covid-19 entrepreneurs may gain the significant advantage by concentrating on
designing and implementing the creative ideas and development strategies. While on
the other hand Kay, McRae and Leoni, (2020) depicted, creative idea development or
entrepreneurial mindset is the long term goal that is uncertain as well as complicated
and needs significant perseverance levels from entrepreneurs. Moreover, it may
enhance in future by exploring each step in the new way, which might be quite difficult.
Due to market demand is uncertain and earning is low in the stage of startup,
entrepreneurs face the rising risk in the future and possibility for company failure.
Nonetheless, based on the present success in the growth stage, most of the
entrepreneurs are likely to sell or harvest the firm. According to Kuckertz et al. (2020)
organizational innovation among the regular entrepreneurs is an important aspect of the
economic activity of the region. Furthermore, while looking at entrepreneurial activity in
developed countries like Australia from the geographical viewpoint, it is clear that
economic activity of the region accounts for almost 38 percent of the national economic
production and a significant level of economic variety.
According to Castro et al., (2020) during the period of covid-19 pandemic, majority of
the businesses suffered with huge crises because of lack of innovation, but many of
them take it as an opportunity and attain the huge benefits and initiated the new idea
which might be developed in future such as online delivery or services. Maritz et al.
(2020) revealed that majority of the entrepreneurs are creative and generate the new
ideas. However, managerial ineptitude, lack of expertise, lack of strategic management
and low financial control, inaccurate or inappropriate location and inability to produce
entrepreneurial transformation or transitions are the most typical causes for the failure
of creative idea or entrepreneurial mindset. Castro et al., (2020) stated in his research
small regional businesses reported innovating in sixty five percent of the innovation
breadth categories in 2019 which may also assist in the future to grow the organizations
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rapidly. Moreover, new goods, procedures, marketing ideas and business techniques
are being introduced which might be highly effective and as per the requirements of
customers. According to Maritz et al. (2020), as the small business innovators had a
high level of planning knowledge regarding business as well as had the innovative
strategy and these businesses will be in better position and respond to Covid-19
because they had digital presence.
According to Kuckertz et al. (2020) the worldwide economy has been shaken by the
Covid-19 epidemic, particularly for entrepreneurs and small and medium sized
businesses who have experienced enormous losses. Resilience, on the other hand, has
evolved as the entrepreneurial talent that enables businesses to adapt and become
stronger in the face of adversity. Furthermore, creative idea generation or
entrepreneurial mindset can be developed in future according to the demand of
customers. Moreover, even if the person don’t plan to become a business owner
anytime soon, having the entrepreneurial attitude may help him to advance in the work
It may assist in future to become more inventive, flexible and adaptable regardless of
present scenario. Maritz et al. (2020) described in his research that the different
regulatory and legal regimes present several obstacles. To manage the entire scenario,
an entrepreneur requires not just the broad understanding of the legal framework, but
also legal guidance to manage intricacies

Conclusion
The global pandemic have caused difficulties for the growth of small and medium size
enterprises (SMEs). To overcome such issues impeding the business growth creativity
and innovation plays a vital role. In current study the impact of Covid-19 on the small
scale business sector was analyzed along with the innovative developments made by
the organizations and the approaches to maintain the sustainability of businesses in
long term was critically evaluated and it was concluded that creativity and innovation in
business processes and operations play a huge role in attracting the consumers and
meeting their requirements. Online home delivery system was the sustainable way used
by the customers largely during the pandemic situation whereas the two different
techniques were provided in order to keep business running are partnership with
external links and selling products through different channels. Moreover, it was
analyzed that entrepreneurial mindset is the key element of saving businesses during
hard times.

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