From Bain.com March 2020 — Companies can brace themselves for lasting changes to the sector even as they grapple with short-term disruption.
At A Glance
- We’ve put together an operational checklist to help retailers frame their immediate response to the COVID-19 pandemic and their medium-term planning for an eventual recovery.
- Key actions include empowering your emergency response team, putting store operations and online fulfillment into crisis mode, optimizing supply and logistics, saving cash, communicating and collaborating.
- The crisis is a defining leadership moment for retailers. Above all, the safety of customers and employees will remain paramount.
For many retailers around the world, the COVID-19 outbreak is now a reality rather than a looming threat. Having watched Chinese retailers striving to meet the needs of both their workers and their customers in the early stages of what has become a pandemic, executives in a host of countries find themselves stepping up to the same challenge. South Korea, Japan, Australia, Italy, France, the US, the UK—the list grows.
