Building Supply Chain Resilience in Consumer Products and Retail

The Buzz: “Many companies did not fully prepare their supply chains to deal with the mounting impact of the coronavirus epidemic…There are steps…to make sure their supply chains can better cope with other disruptive events down the road…revisiting the design of the supply chain to ensure it is ultra-agile and responsive…to deal with future large-scale crises.” (https://hbr.org/2020/02/prepare-your-supply-chain-for-coronavirus February 27, 2020) The supply and demand foundations of the consumer product and retail (CPR) sector have been massively shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic. Take digital acceleration. Online sales in 2020 were expected to increase at their fastest rate in 12 years, accounting for 20 percent of all retail purchases. But this ecommerce spike came at a time of risk and disruption to supply, as the sector’s majors – grocery stores, pharmacies, other retail outlets – struggled to keep their supply chains intact. One example: Unilever saw huge demand for hand sanitizers but a decline in non-essential beauty products. To understand these challenges and how CPR organizations are now responding, Capgemini launched a survey of 400+ CPR executives in eleven countries, examining the impact of COVID-19 on their supply chains, and how they are rethinking to accelerate supply chain resilience. We’ll ask Capgemini’s Lindsey Mazza and Gabriel “Gabi” Ledesma and SAP’s Harris Fogel for their take on Building Supply Chain Resilience in Consumer Products and Retail.