2021 could be a great year — if your business survives

For Ashlie Ordonez, owner ofthe Bare Bar Studio, a spa in Denver, vaccinations for the coronavirus can’t come soon enough. While she anticipates better days later this year, surviving until then will be a struggle, and she knows the next few months will be lean ones.

“I sold my wedding ring so we could pay the bills and keep the doors open,” she said. “I’m sacrificing everything to make it through this pandemic.”

As 2021 begins, business owners big and small confront a rapidly shifting landscape. An end to the pandemic is in sight as inoculations begin, but the slow pace of vaccinations has delayed the turnaround they were counting on. Hanging on is the chief goal for many, even as others look ahead to what they consider to be an inevitable rebound.

This year “is not going to be a walk through the park, but I’m optimistic,” said Jimmy Etheredge, chief executive for North America at Accenture, the strategy and consulting company .“The eggs are in the vaccine basket.”

Even as he anticipates a turnaround, Etheredge emphasized that many of the changes wrought by the pandemic, such as working remotely and a shift to cloud technology by companies, are here to stay.

“Ten months of pandemic has accelerated technological change by 10 years,” he said. “We’re never going to go back to the way things were before.”

In the meantime, it is clear that there will be winners and losers this year. Restaurateurs, leisure and hospitality businesses and the travel industry will continue to struggle as a surge in C OVID19 cases prompts renewed lockdowns in many parts of the country.

The biggest companies, on the other hand, are positioning themselves for what could be a surge in consumption when the pandemic recedes. Technology, manufacturing, health care and some other industries are booming.

President-elect Joe Biden signaled Friday that trillions of dollars’ worth of fresh stimulus could be on the way, and the imminent Democratic control of the Senate makes that much more likely.

Even so, these remain times of limbo for many executive sand business owners.

“The days of having a permanent budget or a permanent plan are gone for a while,” said Mercedes Abramo, chief executive for North America at the luxury-goods purveyor Cartier. “You’ve got to manage through this ambiguity.”