F. Curtis Barry & Company Blog

No one knows the business environment after COVID-19 or what the “new normal” will be. Considering the potential bankruptcies of large and small businesses, especially brick and mortar retail stores, we believe that businesses that emerge strong from COVID-19 will have a huge advantage in the typical fourth quarter peak of 2020 and beyond.

Prior to COVID-19, companies were struggling to hire enough skilled workers to meet customer demands.  Now businesses are needing to fundamentally change to continue operating and stay in business, but now labor has become a different type of constraint.  This new constraint comes in the form of business struggling to be able to find enough labor to come in and fulfill order demand, while at the same time providing health checks throughout the day and limiting employee interactions.

As the country continues to battle COVID-19, many businesses are having to adapt at staggering speeds or face closure.  In some states, "non-essential" businesses are forced to close and others are operating on skeleton crews.  As states begin to shed light on how and when businesses can begin to reopen, businesses should think about how to support sales in this new economy. 

Various indicators show customers are less likely to shop in crowded stores and significantly more likely to order online with contactless pickup.  Business must adapt or face closures as COVID-19 will affect retail for quite some time.

The COVID-19 pandemic is infecting hundreds of thousands of people and threatening to shut down millions of businesses. Many business owners are trying to stay open and service the customer while keeping their employees and customers safe. Other owners temporarily shut down and are thinking about how and when they can reopen.   

As consultants to wholesale distributors, retailers, and ecommerce companies, we are working with a number of “essential” companies remaining operational, as well as retailers implementing local, store level-pick-with curbside pickup. Like you, our hope is to get through this and move on to the “new normal.”

Global supply chains have not experienced this much disruption since WWII when the United States wasn’t as dependent on oversea goods and manufacturing.  Many businesses are making swift business decisions and joining an illustrious group of retailers closing for several weeks to try and flatten the curve of the coronavirus. 

We are on the potential brink of global Supply Chains disruption.  Many of the major brick and mortar retailers in America are now temporarily closed until at least mid-to-end of April. Online merchants are still open, although Amazon is limiting shipments to priority medical and health products.

These are truly unprecedented times.  Strikes at ports and fuel prices sometimes disrupt supply chains; however, supply chains have not experienced such impact and fast disruption to off-shore manufacturing and shipping patterns as they are with COVID-19 since WWII. 

Considering all of the challenges today’s ecommerce fulfillment centers face, it’s difficult to know what aspect to tackle first when assessing your operation. While it’s OK to have just some general objectives - like reduce fulfillment costs – many companies’ assessments have more specific objectives such as addressing increased fulfillment expenses without incremental increases in productivity.

Even with technology advancements and headlines alluding to robot-operated warehouses, most fulfillment centers and warehouses rely on manual labor. In fact, only the largest companies employ and justify advanced automation. Despite the cost prohibitiveness of automation for many companies, manual labor is not cheap, either.

Opening a new fulfillment facility – whether it’s an existing building or build-to-suit (BTS) project - is an expensive and long-term commitment.  Oftentimes, facilities do not open on time or within budget because of inadequate planning and conditions that arise. Issues such as construction delays and systems/automation testing lengthen the start-up timeframe and increase costs.