Sunny Nandwani is the Founder and Managing Partner of Acuver Consulting. Here he has been instrumental in conceptualizing and scaling Acuver to a 100 strong company today along with his two cofounders. His strong domain knowledge supported by his business acumen aided him to scale the company from the ground up. He plays the role of the CEO at Acuver and is responsible for its overall operations and growth.
The retail industry has been hit hard by the current pandemic. Retailers are struggling with uncertainty, extremely fluid environment, disrupted supply chains, indeterminate delays in delivery, and above all, a rapidly changing consumer behavior. They also have to deal with the additional pressure to ensure the well-being of the front-end and back-end workers, and the safety of customers buying from them, while meeting the government regulations.
During the initial stages of the pandemic, certain big-box FMCG retailers saw a huge spike in sales due to panic buying, but that is now normalizing. Many other retailers are struggling to get inventory as production and transport has come to a standstill. Luxury, apparel, automobile, high-end consumer goods, and lifestyle retail stores are seeing a major shut-down as the consumer optimism as well as income is at an all-time low with millions of them losing jobs due to lockdowns.
We might arrive at a stage where things get back to the way they were, or we might need to change ourselves to create a “new normal”. One thing is for sure, unforeseen pandemics like COVID-19 or sudden natural disasters will keep disrupting the world as we know it. In such a situation, the best
retailers can do is to prepare themselves by creating a robust backbone and processes that are able to handle such unpredictable situations and minimize losses. How can retailers get ready for the post COVID-19 world?
Enhance supply chain resilience
When any global calamity, natural disaster, or pandemic strikes, the first thing that gets hit is the supply chain. Your retail supply chain is the process you use to get your products to your consumers. It encompasses everything from obtaining the raw materials for making your product to delivering that product into your shoppers’ hands. It’s easy to overlook the importance of supply chain management and undervalue its effect on your business operations. However, retailers can no longer afford to do so and must take steps to make their supply chain agile and resilient to sudden, unexpected shifts in the market.
Supply chain agility represents how fast a supply chain responds to the changes in the environment, natural disasters, pandemics, customer preferences, competitive forces, etc. The organization should be able to manufacture and deliver products profitably within a short lead time and varied volumes. The key here is responding quickly to any change or anomaly. To achieve agility, retailers must build a streamlined and collaborative process with the use of right technologies. Complete automation and visibility of the supply chain can keep retailers on top of issues and get hold of problems even before they arise.
Speed up the OODA loop
Agility requires speeding up the OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, and act). The following diagram illustrates how you can achieve supply chain agility at each step:
Businesses can optimize the complex global supply chains by monitoring demand and managing shared manufacturing assets across geographies, collaborating with all the stakeholders and service providers,
and building a process for managing systemwide inventory. Technologies like robotics, IoT/sensors, cloud computing, big data and analytics, mobile services, and social media can all work together for the enhancement of business model, operations, and the customer experience in order to build a supply chain that offers flexibility and reduces risk.
Switch to omnichannel retail
A typical customer journey used to involve in-store shopping + e-commerce, but now they are looking more for cloud-based solutions, social networks, mobile apps, vertically-integrated platforms, live-streaming, video conferencing, and so on. They are more willing to move out of their comfort zone and explore digital channels and retail touchpoints. Soon, customers will start to expect a seamless omnichannel experience and even after the lockdown is lifted, the habit would remain. The first step that businesses must take right now is to strengthen their channel integration, strategy, competency, technology, data, staff, organization, and procedures in order achieve sustainable omnichannel transformation.
Diversification of supply sources and strengthened retailer-supplier relation
The global disruption in supply chains and stopping of production and shipping from China, have left most retailers with no choice but to wait for things to get back to normal. Retailers need to create multiple supply sources, so that they have a plan B when such adverse conditions arise.
Such pandemic also highlights the fact that retailers should strengthen relationship with their suppliers. Suppliers play a big role in retail operations, so retailer should strive to strengthen relationship with
existing suppliers in their industry. A healthy relationship through communication, professionalism, and good old-fashioned niceness will ensure stock availability at the right time.
Enhance customer experiences
Since customers are trying to avoid visiting the brick-and-mortar stores, the focus has shifted to safe deliveries. Customers have become more cautious than ever and are now trusting only those retailers who have transparent operations and can convince them that their product is safe to use. Retailers need to ramp-up to gain complete inventory visibility, automate picking, and initiate safe contactless delivery in a well-planned manner. This will build trust and enhance customer experience with your brand.
To conclude
To sustain or gain market share retailers will keep a strategic focus on positioning themselves as a trusted brand. This will be achieved by executing a customer-centric strategy, and a well-planned robust, in-sync, streamlined and seamless supply chain operation. Retailers also need to accelerate their digital initiatives. Business that empower themselves with right tools and processes will be ready for any challenges that the future holds.
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