The COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted substantial losses on a large number of enterprises and brought about the risk of unsustainable operations across the world. However, certain enterprises still managed to grow against the trend prevailing during the epidemic and succeeded in taking risks to make profits. This study discusses how global enterprises adopt a proactive risk management approach to transform crises into sustainable business performance during the period starting from the epidemic outbreak to normalization. By mainly obtaining research data from the Internet news media and official websites of the enterprises using content analysis technique, this paper chose case studies, from December 2019 to December 2021, of eight different companies, namely: BYD (China, Asia), Mafengwo (China, Asia), Xiamen Airlines (China, Asia), Zhijiang Bio (China, Asia), The Bund (United States, America), Walmart (United States, America), Qantas Airways (Australia, Oceania), and Honotel Group (France, Europe), from different industrial sectors including manufacturing, tourism, transportation, technical services, catering, retail, airlines, and accommodation, respectively. The study results show that each enterprise specifically incorporates the method of proactive risk management, to deal with a sudden crisis and take risks to make profits during the epidemic. The study findings provide a feasible way for enterprises to cope with sudden crises and enhance their ability to maintain sustainable operations.
