Many companies of marketing research, as well as experts and analysts are giving important advices and guidelines to face the new reality after the spread of Covid-19, an event that has changed different things and behaviours but that can hide new opportunities. Accenture tries to identify these ones for helping industries to re-start with success.
“Covid-19 – the company experts say – is a once-in-a-lifetime health and economic disaster, which will permanently change the way people work and live. The effects on the consumer goods industry will be profound and lasting; we will not be going back to the world we knew. This crisis is fundamentally changing how and what consumers buy and is accelerating immense structural changes in the consumer goods industry.
Now is the time to heed this unprecedented wake-up call to be agile and relevant to consumers and customers—not just during the crisis, but also in the future.”
As we told, behaviours and people point of views are not the same and it is traduced in new needs and desires.
“Consumer buyer values – they explain from Accenture – are already shifting to products and experiences which are more healthy, trustworthy, environmentally sensitive, and more supportive of the communities in which they live and work. The Covid-19 crisis has created a shift in priorities for consumer goods businesses. There are actions to take now to respond and sustain the core business, next to reset the relationship with stakeholders, and finally to renew and scale in a future marked by growth and resilience.”
Among the most important actions for the first phase, Accenture identifies the creation of a cross-functional command center with KPI tracking, an elastic digital workplace task force and the reshaping of a marketing plan around new demand and brand purpose.
Next actions concern how to reset relationships and ways of working. For this area, Accenture indicates the following priorities: to build deeper understanding of new demand spaces & paths to purchase prioritizing accelerated e-Commerce sales (B2B/D2C), reallocate and repurpose resources (e.g. field salesforce), enable the shift in product portfolio by flexible (3rd party) manufacturing & logistics. Finally, according to Accenture experts, it become fundamental to accelerate move to intelligent data driven operating model (to support new business model), reprioritize enterprise investment plans for post Covid era, scan market for M&A opportunities.
“This is a challenging time for the consumer goods industry – Accenture underlines – as Covid-19 accelerates the pace of change. While no one can predict how long the crisis will last, it is imperative that leaders act now while also preparing for the future.”
