A Moment to Reflect: How Have City of Melton Businesses Handled the COVID-19 Disruption?

The City of Melton, like the rest of Australia and the world, has been subjected to massive disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the disruption hit, Council’s Economic Development team swung into action and has contacted over 1200 businesses to check-in on their operational status and help connect them into appropriate support.

Many businesses have taken the opportunity to become a member of Council’s Venture Melton Business Network. It is free to join and being a member gives you access to free one on one business advice from industry specialists, learning and development opportunities, webinars, events, business to business connections and more.

You can learn more about the benefits of being part of one of the most connected and supported business networks in Australia by visiting the Venture Melton Business Network website.

Reaching out to more than 1200 businesses has provided great insight into the resilience and entrepreneurial spirit of our local business community. From the darkest days in late-March to early-April when many business owners were wondering how they were going to survive, most City of Melton businesses have reported they were able to tap into some sort of support to help them get through. In many cases, businesses have been able adjust and pivot to deliver a revised service offering.

The graph below shows the changing business sentiment over the past 12 weeks and the increasing number of businesses that have been able to successfully ‘Hibernate’ until restrictions are eased.  In early April nearly 25% of businesses were classified as being in a ‘Critical’ state.  This has now eased back to less than 5% and the newer classification of ‘Hibernation’ is now accounting for around 14% of businesses. Over 50% of businesses are now in the ‘Affected but OK for now’ category, while a further 22% are doing ‘OK’ which also includes a percentage of businesses who have been able to increase trade during the disruption:

It is extremely pleasing to seen a downward trend in the number of businesses experiencing hardship.

At the local level the hardest hit sectors have been the Food and Hospitality, Accommodation, Events based industires and non-essential Retail sectors, with many businesses required to hibernate, or forced to shed staff and adjust their business models.  While these sectors have been hit hard, it is also where a lot of the more innovative approaches to adjusting the existing business model has been observed. 

Hear stories from local businesses that have ‘Conquered the Crisis’

The largest employing sector in the City of Melton is the Construction Industry which accounts for around 15% of local employment.  While not immune to negative impacts, for the most part construction activity has been able to continue which has kept many people in jobs and helped cushion the impact to supporting industries including take-away food and convenience businesses. 

In amongst the doom and gloom, there have also been the genuine ‘good news stories’ of businesses that have been able to grow and prosper.  This includes home maintenance businesses getting new work from people who have been spending more time at home finding things that need to be fixed.  Similarly, pet shops and hobby shops have benefited from people having more time to devote to their animals and spend with family.

The City of Melton is also home to a large distribution centre for an online retailer who had to put on 100 additional casuals to keep up with demand and reported it being busier than their peak Christmas sales periods. 

Anecdotally there has also been an increased interest in large industrial development projects, which is a good sign that there will be more ongoing local employment opportunities.

One thing is for certain, there has been a lot of forced change during this disruption to both staff and customer behaviour, and in the process new knowledge and innovations will have been born.  It will be interesting to see whether this disruption sparks ongoing innovation in the business community. 

For a further look at the local economy make-up and industry trends visit the Melton Economic Profile website

Bruce Marshall
Coordinator Economic Development & Tourism