Summary

This week’s newsletter is focused on thriving amid disruption & supply chain recovery

The first article highlights examples of retail companies that are successfully pivoting during the pandemic. It is mainly focused on Chinese retailers that are ahead in their re-opening. The second link shows Europe’s supply chain capacity recovering to 79%. Next, follows a discussion on the resurgence of Covid cases in the US. The way Covid cases are being reported has changed. But this has received virtually no coverage in the media.

Top Links

​Why Some Retailers Are Thriving Amid Disruption, MIT Sloan Management Review, June 29, 2020 (Reading Time: 8 min)

• Leaders of retail companies that are thriving, have pivoted their traditional business models to leverage digital practices
• They have accelerated operations through multichannel marketing
  • Empowered and trained sales agents to post content on social media channels
  • Added virtual design session chats
  • Engaged in live-streaming events with customers
  • Launched online chatbots to drive online sales conversion rate
• Some are expanding the use of cloud-based WMS while utilizing
  • In-company design-to-production for speed and flexibility
  • External suppliers for economies of scale

​Comments

A takeaway here, is the massive leverage that social media has to connect to retail customers. While we’ve seen this growing, the pandemic has given us examples of how fast this can be driven. It’s also clear that digital transformation can move rapidly when companies are urgently focused on the goal. It reinforces the principles discussed last week in the leadership articles.

​​European Supply Chain Recovering up to 79% of its capacity. Automotive is making most rapid recovery and metal, rubber and paper the slowest. Most European countries have ended their planned lock downs.​

US Covid Second Wave – Commentary

The rates of new Covid 19 cases, hospitalizations, and covid deaths are receiving tremendous media coverage along with governments pausing or back tracking on phased openings. Local businesses leaders and even some local municipalities are pushing back. (e.g. Elon Musk) It’s become near impossible, during this election year, to remove politics from the story line. Business leaders want to operate with the best information available.

What makes the situation more confusing is that in May, the CDC, along with the CSTE, significantly changed the way they count daily new cases and deaths to include unverified, probable infections. See the Dallas – Fort Worth CBS News report below.

​Note: The state epidemiological reporting rule (CSTE) that this is based on can be found on page 10, table 4 of the guideline

So while cases rise, local mayors and state governors react. But we are not given given reporting on probable versus verified case. It is hard to see that politics is not playing a role in this, which is unfortunate. What is your view?​

I will report the results in the next newsletter