There’s no escaping the dismal news — the COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc globally on lives, families, the workplace, and businesses’ bottom line both large and small. The impact that global “social distancing” and business shut-downs will have on the global economy is yet to be fully quantified. During the SARS and MERS epidemics, there was temporary pressure on the business supply chain — but the impact of COVID19 will be at a far greater scale.
It “could be felt for as much as two years and cost up to $400 billion for business supply chains,” according to the Boeing Center for Supply Chain Innovation. HBR pointed out in late February that “the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic created just a blip in the global financial markets…[but] the relative importance of China in the worldwide economic ecosystem has increased tremendously in the past 18 years….and many more industries are now heavily dependent on China.”
Despite this gloomy outlook, many brands immediately leapt to “do their part,” which was inspiring to see. According to Fast Company, LVMH was the first to adapt its production line to make hand sanitizer for local hospitals and communities; KFC quickly partnered with the nonprofit Blessings in a Backpack to help provide weekend meals to kids with food insecurity, and Netflix set up a $100 million relief fund, including a $15 million for donations to organizations working to support out-of-work production employees.
