Yes / The purpose of this study is twofold. Firstly, the authors have conducted a systematic investigation considering the historical pandemic periods (1991–2021) over 30 years to identify critical factors and business failure phenomenon during pandemics to explore “what”, “why” and “how” factors contributing to business failure during the COVID-19 pandemic and secondly identified interlinks of these factors to explain the phenomenon of business failure strategically through various quantitative models.