business case study during pandemic

Coming together in a crisis

• Call for Change
• When Tech Meets Human Ingenuity
• A Valuable Difference
• Meet the Team
• Related Capabilities

Call for change

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. People around the world faced uncertainty, fear and a lack of information. Seemingly overnight, businesses and schools were closing, cities were locking down and personal protective equipment and necessities were in short supply. No one knew what the next day would bring or how this global crisis would impact all of us—physically, emotionally, or financially.

Here is our story of what Accenture did to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on our people, clients, partners, shareholders, and communities, how we navigated its challenges, and how we are planning to return to work together, greater than ever.

Fortunately, by early March 2020, Accenture had already taken action to make sure our people were safe, which—as always—is our top priority. Our global security team had established a pandemic task force in China and surrounding areas in January, using emergency and crisis management structures already in place. At the same time, cross-function teams were working to secure business resiliency and establish health and safety protocols to keep our people safe.

We were also able to respond quickly to the needs of our clients at this moment in history, because we had the technology, the infrastructure and the collaborative culture we needed in place. Every area of our business—from our people and how we work to the services we offer our clients across 120 countries—came together to set the tone for the months to come:

• Accenture specialists equipped our teams to work remotely , quickly mobilizing 95% of our people to work from home, ensuring business continuity
• We guided our clients and local communities in making the shift to remote work , including issuing a playbook that has helped nearly 600 non-profit professionals globally.
• We supported our people with services and assistance they needed to maintain their health, safety and well-being.
• By combining technology and talent, we drove business resilience through virtual workshops, coaching and peer-to-peer networks on Microsoft Teams.

Our success in reaching these milestones was the result of our unified approach, working together as one team. We communicated early and often with our people. And we made sure we all stayed connected and supported through our campaign known as #MoreTogetherNow—an all-inclusive website that continues to advise on the who, what, where, why and how of working through the pandemic.

When tech meets human ingenuity

Working remotely: a seismic shift in short order

Before COVID-19, Accenture people worked from a variety of locations—from client sites to hotels, Accenture offices or airports. Today, the vast majority of our 721,000 people are set up to securely work remotely in every country where Accenture operates. Around 96% of offices moved to work from home, including people at more than 50 Accenture Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. We quickly  enabled remote working  for our people working in procurement, payables, and other critical shared services. While this might sound like a small feat, imagine what would have happened if our 300 colleagues who process more than 1.4M invoices a year were unable to work from home.

We sent out more than 80,000 desktop computers to our people within a week. We purchased more than 33,000 Wi-Fi hotspots and enabled more than 230,000 concurrent connections using a Virtual Private Networking (VPN) solution. In India alone, we distributed tens of thousands of laptops and computers in less than a week—in addition to Wi-Fi hotspots and uninterrupted power sources. In addition, our local technology services enabled remote access services for 85,000 VPN users and provided 60,000 dongles to improve connectivity. Our team managed hundreds of one-to-one follow-ups and used our remote website, training and videos to support the shift.

One of our “go-to” solutions has been  Microsoft Teams . We are the largest corporate user of Teams, and at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 we saw a massive increase in its usage—as a 257% increase in audio usage and a 642% increase in video usage in one month as remote working demand grew. Teams also offers a global 24/7 chat response for our leaders and a  Microsoft Teams Rapid Resource Center , which provides how-to instructions, leading practices and additional resources to help people stay connected.

In  Corporate Services & Sustainability , we built a team of 40 people offering global workflow support. We used 11 COVID-19 dashboards to develop reports and tools and answered 990 e-mails over a 24-hour service level agreement. We handled thousands of calls diverted from the Accenture Security Operations Center.

Our security, workplace services, communications and other teams joined forces to create a comprehensive and flexible plan to return to our offices—and our clients’ offices—where permissible. Our plan balanced people’s safety and the needs of our clients in guiding a phased transition back to the office. We had personal protection equipment in 100% of our offices. We established “100 Return to Office Workplace Protocols,” introducing enhanced health and safety protocols, global checklists for office preparation and readiness, communication templates, access to digital health and safety guides, videos and more.

Guiding clients and communities: the Now and the Next

As always, continuing to work closely with our clients was a top priority for everyone at Accenture. We offered advice and support with  thought leadership  to help our clients emerge stronger from the crisis. Our Marketing teams worked closely with our business thought leaders to publish more than 60 individual pieces of content between March and July 2020 across 19 industries and six functional groups. We also released more than 800 client stories during this time.

Jill Kramer, chief marketing & communications officer at Accenture says, “We produced a collection of robust research-based recommendations that focused on what our clients needed to know to handle the reality of NOW but also what may come NEXT. We saw clients engage with the content at record levels, but our main goal was to help them act swiftly and confidently based on robust data and insights.”

But we also worked together to solve unprecedented challenges facing our communities and industries. For instance, we  collaborated with Avanade and Rolls Royce  to design, manage and operate a supply chain for hospital ventilators. We organized the purchase and shipment of 3.4 million parts from more than 100 suppliers to three manufacturing locations. The government of the United Kingdom alone ordered 5,000 ventilators via this supply chain.

We worked with Avanade and Microsoft to connect 57 health system procurement departments with a network of vendors. Launching a new service known as Critical Supply Connect, we connected 638 hospitals and 110 suppliers with more than 300 unique products—all in just eight days.

As many businesses stalled and entire industries were unable to operate, unemployment became a pressing societal concern. The chief human resources officers of Accenture, Lincoln Financial Group, Procore and Verizon joined forces to create  People + Work Connect , a free employer-to-employer initiative that brings together companies reducing their workforces with companies in urgent need of workers. Over just 14 days in April 2020, People + Work Connect moved from idea to launch, and in the next year more than 270 companies from 94 countries uploaded more than 380,000 roles to the platform.

COVID-19 didn’t stop our efforts in the non-profit sector, either. Accenture Development Partnerships works with leading international development organizations to address the world’s social, economic and environmental issues. We provided pro bono support to Dimagi Inc., a social enterprise that provides open-source software technology for underserved communities, to validate and improve training materials and user guides for COVID-19-related apps deployed on the frontlines. We donated laptops to schools in the Middle East to support eLearning, provided plastic cover pages from binders for assembling protective visors for medical staff in France and purchased 55,000 face coverings from a North America-owned business that donated 100% of profits to its healthcare system.

"The investments we made in IT technologies, infrastructure and a collaborative culture positioned us to support Accenture’s rapid move to work from home when we needed it most." — PENELOPE PRETT , Chief Information, Data & Analytics Officer, Accenture

“Our technology skills came into their own for ourselves and others. For example, the Education Department in the United Kingdom is using our digital skills toolkit for millions of furloughed workers—it helped more than 50,000 new learners in June alone.” — PAUL DAUGHERTY , Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, Accenture

Driving business resilience

We relied on technology to increase the tempo of communications, delivering more than 1,100 messages across 53 countries to our people and our clients within the first few weeks of March. Our dedicated COVID-19 app team developed and rolled out more than 25 apps covering  business resilience , asset management, health attestation, donation tracking and social distance monitoring.

Crises such as the pandemic focus attention on the need for cash to keep the wheels of business turning, so our finance team  needed to act swiftly  to keep a daily pulse on our financial health, payment processes and procedures for our clients and our people. We enabled off-system new businesses and people, supporting 42 deals with 7,000 people in 32 countries with crisis response.

We provided timely data and analysis to our organization’s leaders to aid critical decision making. These and other measures strengthened our financial position and meant we could perform business critical functions—including closing our books and submitting our 10Q on time and executing 22 acquisitions in the first six months of the pandemic.

Supporting health and well-being—in all its forms

At Accenture, we strive to support our people’s health, safety and well-being, every day. But in these extraordinary times, it’s even more important to make sure that people stay happy and healthy, feel safe and connected and know they are financially secure.

By April 2020, the Corporate Services & Sustainability Mobility team had offered support to every assignee, traveler or individual on holiday. We contacted 12,000 assignees, booked 8,000 flights and helped more than 3,000 people who became stranded due to new travel restrictions. We created daily status updates to track ongoing changes to country travel restrictions, employee locations and tax implications, resulting in more than 500 reports in six months. In two weekends, we managed the rapid escalation of 20 country shutdowns. The Mobility team also secured thousands of hotel rooms and corporate apartments, including 1,000 hotel rooms in the Philippines alone.

We completed more than 6,000 COVID-19 Tax Accrual Impact Assessments for taxable travelers in 69 countries. Mobility coordinated with travel suppliers to cancel 6,000 flights in three weeks and, in just one week, they formed a team of 15 people to create a COVID-19 approval process and a tool to manage business-essential travel requests.

Mobility’s Meeting and Events team collaborated with Marketing and Communications and  Accenture Productions  to successfully convert a major in-person event to a virtual experience in just seven days. The virtual event for 300 people featured 12 hours of live content, videos, polls and feedback, played across 14 time zones and 26 countries. More importantly, Accenture avoided 766.05 tons of CO2 emissions from air travel. Throughout the pandemic, this shift to virtual events has enabled our people to remain connected, while Accenture-approved technology continues to help them get the most from meetings, despite travel and in-person event restrictions.

We deployed new capabilities to enable local government benefits and to reimburse people for additional expenses incurred when working from home. We developed analytics and data insights with key metrics to measure and manage the business and financial impact of the pandemic and to ensure people’s safety and security. We further served our talented teams by issuing 652,000 pay checks during March in 56 countries and also made early payments and reimbursements where needed, such as in India, Russia and Peru.

In addition, our HR Case Management team stayed in touch with people who were unwell and used contact tracing to maintain safety standards by making sure that anyone exposed to the virus avoided returning to the office. The team issued regular, accurate information to assist leadership decision making and inform our people. We selected and trained 600 HR professionals to serve as single points of contact for every Accenture person impacted by the pandemic. The case managers provided 24x7 telephone support for queries and concerns. Trained client response teams kept in touch with clients, vendors and landlords of our real estate, while employee relations professionals supported employees and their families who found themselves handling difficult situations.

A valuable difference

Returning to office: safety first

The next phase of our response to COVID-19 centers on our return to the workplace . We have created a comprehensive plan that focuses on the specific needs of our clients and our people. The plan includes globally organized, locally implemented evaluation and pre-approval processes and protocols that vary based on the type of space and emphasizes constant, compassionate communications with our people.

To ensure a safe return, we’re focusing on the fundamentals, such as space and access management, social distancing guidelines, enhanced cleaning and the provision of safety supplies. We’ve teamed with Salesforce to implement a secure health cloud to support our return to work, which includes case management, contact tracing, shift management and a Workplace Command Center.

The way forward

We’ve all learned a lot over the past year, but perhaps the most important lesson is that change is a constant, for all of us. No matter what may come, Accenture believes three key actions will help your organization embrace change:

Invest in the journey and your priorities ongoing. Accenture had already made moves to support our workforce in an agile way when faced with difficult decisions about how to run our business. We always want to serve our clients "on our best day," but we also aim to keep our people safe and healthy. With the need to work remotely, we had to find a balance between these two priorities—and we were ready to do so because of the investments we had made, coupled with the support of strong, empathetic leaders.

Understand where you are, then fill the gaps. As part of our analysis into how to create an elastic digital workforce , we created a diagnostic with a series of questions about readiness that we completed ourselves and also made available to clients. Based on a score of one to three, where three was the ideal score, Accenture scored three for the majority of answers. By contrast, most of our clients found they scored ones across the board. Your organization can benefit in seeing where your own gaps lie and work to address them.

Communicate freely and frequently as a way of life. A strong and regular communications strategy that includes employees, clients, suppliers and partners is essential to being transparent and staying aligned. Ongoing, daily updates help cut through the noise. By moving entirely to virtual operations, our video production team has helped connect our people working remotely—for example, producing Accenture’s biggest and most complex all-employee broadcast ever, featuring our CEO, Julie Sweet —and is still handling internal events and client events, such as virtual workshops.

By investing in the journey, filling in the gaps, and keeping lines of communication wide open, Accenture continues to create value for people, clients, partners, shareholders and communities and help them thrive in a changing world.

“Our work to ensure the well-being of Accenture people is more important than ever. We continue to implement and evolve our comprehensive plan to return to offices where permissible, with our people’s safety and the needs of our clients guiding the way.” — MARGARET SMITH , Senior Managing Director and Executive Director – Corporate Services & Sustainability and Business Operations, Accenture

Meet the team

Margaret Smith

Penelope Prett

Kai Nowosel

Tony Leraris

Helen Hickson

Erin Harris

Lisette Smyrnios

Arlin Pedrick

Related capabilities, how accenture does it, corporate services & sustainability.

These teams are enabling innovation, growth and business continuity for Accenture.

Finance at Accenture

10 Business Case Studies to Teach Online

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• Case Teaching
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• Digital Learning

FEATURED CASE STUDIES

COVID-19 at Oxford University Hospitals. Karthik Ramanna of University of Oxford

Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital. Laura Huang of Harvard Business School

Showrooming at BestBuy. Chen Lin of CEIBS

The Case of the Unidentified Industries, 2018. Mihir Desai of Harvard Business School

“Dear White Boss…” Meredith Burnett of Kogod School of Business at American University

Unilever’s New Global Strategy: Competing Through Sustainability. Christopher Bartlett of Harvard Business School

TrustSphere: Building a Market for Relationship Analytics. Anna Tavis of NYU School of Professional Studies

Benevento Foods: When the Rubber Hits the Dough. David Wood of Ivey Business School

Dollar Shave Club. Karin Kollenz-Quetard of EDHEC Business School

Uber Africa: Making Cash and Alternative Payments Work in Kenya through Contextual Leadership. Caren Scheepers of University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science

Curious to understand how educators are teaching business case studies virtually (whether they’ve done so for years or only recently transitioned their teaching online in the pandemic’s wake), we asked 10 experienced case teachers to share a case that they’ve found works particularly well in an online environment. The educators also reveal whether they’ve changed their approach to teaching the case—and how—to keep students engaged in a fully virtual setting.

We previously asked educators to share their favorite cases to teach in the classroom; the list below expands on that theme to include cases that work particularly well online. These cases range in topic from COVID-19 to race in the workplace and also represent a variety of disciplines, from entrepreneurship to operations management.

1. COVID-19 at Oxford University Hospitals

Karthik Ramanna, Professor of Business and Public Policy, University of Oxford

“The case COVID-19 at Oxford University Hospitals is set in mid-March of this year, just before the lockdowns and the first wave of the pandemic was expected to hit the West. There was a lot of uncertainty and anxiety about the virus, and government advice was often contradictory. The case protagonist is the chief medical officer of one of the largest public hospitals in Europe, and she has to convene a hybrid meeting of her doctors explaining to them that the government wants elective surgeries to continue for a few more days, even as there are critical shortages of PPE. The reason is the government doesn’t want the hospital systems to back up with elective surgeries as we enter a potentially indefinite shutdown. But the surgeons are themselves nervous, and some want to defy the government order.

It’s a case about active listening, morale management, and collective decision-making in a crisis. The issues might seem, at first, very specific to medics, but all organizations—business, government, and nonprofit—are being stretched to make decisions that involve staff taking risks to keep operations going. How do you take the team along and reinforce your organizational culture through that journey? The protagonist has to communicate and work with her team in a hybrid environment (in person and online), so this case works really well for hybrid and online classrooms.

The first thing that comes up during the case discussion is the sheer number of issues on the CMO’s plate on just that one morning in mid-March. So, students need to learn how to prioritize, to triage. This is a great activity to disperse students into smaller breakout rooms to come up with a top-three priorities list. In the breakouts, they quickly see how varied their priorities are and how difficult it is in even a small group to come up with a consensus list. They start to understand what it means to have good judgment on such matters.

Next, there is the issue of communicating with the nervous surgeons. The case lends itself well to role plays online, because the protagonist has to address the surgeons in the same way. How do you placate your key employees in a remote setup during a pandemic when your own boss is requiring you to ask those employees to take more risks? Ideally, you’d want to have a difficult conversation like that in person, but we just aren’t being afforded that reality right now. Students learn to adapt their online presence for the task at hand.”

Educators interested in this case should email the Oxford Case Centre .

2. Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital

Laura Huang, Associate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Excerpted from Associate Professor Huang’s Inside the Case video :

“ Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital is a case I wrote that explores the journey of venture capitalist and founder Arlan Hamilton, a Black woman who identifies as LGBTQ. The case talks about the norms around venture capital and how women, people of color, and people with nontraditional backgrounds really struggle to secure the necessary venture capital for their firms and for entrepreneurial success. While the protagonist once lived in her car, she was able to go on to start Backstage Capital, an investment fund that seeks to support underestimated, disadvantaged entrepreneurs.

It’s a great case to really introduce important concepts in entrepreneurship, as well as early stage financing; what it means in terms of diversity, equality, and implicit bias; and really how pioneering individuals and organizations can change the world of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial financing and make it a more inclusive space. My hope is that this case pushes students to consider what these types of industries look like, and the types of progress that can be made, while really understanding entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurship and the opportunities within.”

“This is a great case to teach online because I find there are lots of things that people are willing to debate—and there are strong opinions. Over the course of going through this case in the class discussion, we’ll see lots of polarizing comments come out. And then what I like to do is put students into dyads or pairs. I often have someone who is assisting that helps put students into these pairs, where one person has one perspective and one person has a very different perspective. Then, when we put them in breakout rooms, they have a chance to one-on-one debate. When we come back as a class, we debrief, and we talk about these perspectives and the different points and the different ways in which they were able to communicate with each other.

We use lots of online tools here, such as breakout rooms and the chat features, to really stimulate discussion, and it makes the debrief really rich.”

Additional comments from Associate Professor Huang:

“In general, the biggest change that I’ve made in teaching online (instead of in the classroom), is using the online tools as an opportunity to get frequent and quick ‘pulse checks’ on what the students are thinking at any moment.

For example, if there’s a particularly provocative topic that we’re discussing, I love to ask students to just ‘chat in one adjective that describes your current feeling right now,’ This gives me a sense for how some are feeling, for example, ‘frustrated,’ while others are feeling ‘determined,’ and so on. I never would have been able to get such a quick check on the emotions in the entire room, in such a quick fashion, when in the physical classroom. This is extremely helpful when we’re discussing contentious issues, such as the ones that we discuss in Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital . I also encourage students to share examples from their own work experiences in this way.”

3. TrustSphere: Building a Market for Relationship Analytics

Anna A. Tavis, Clinical Associate Professor, NYU, School of Professional Studies

“I teach this case in a synchronous online course called People and Organizational Management, which serves as an immersion and introduction to the MS in the Human Capital Analytics and Technology program at NYU’s School of Professional Studies.

The case describes a seven-year-old advanced-stage startup that introduces a cutting-edge relationship analytics technology to the market. The fact that this case is focused on measuring and interpreting patterns of digital communications is perfectly fitting with the current reality of remote working and learning that the students in this class are experiencing.

The case lends itself perfectly to online teaching. Here is how I make this case come alive for my students.

Manish Goel, the protagonist in this case, is based in London while the majority of my students are in the United States. As I’m now teaching the case online, I can (and do!) invite Manish Goel to guest lecture in class and tell his own story.

I also demo TrustSphere technology for the students just in time to enable them to understand how it works, as well as give them an opportunity to log in and try out the technology for themselves.

Once the facts are established and the initial business case is described and agreed upon, I divide the students into breakout groups and ask them to develop solutions for the case’s main dilemma. The online setting allows all teams to work in parallel on their own scenarios. I can also circulate and drop into the teams’ individual discussions.

When the groups are joined back, they showcase and defend their solutions. We keep a whiteboard running to record the key points in the presentations. In the end, we do an anonymous poll to vote for the best solutions among them all.

Finally, as a class, we prepare one agreed-upon presentation for Manish Goel, the CEO. The case ends with the class receiving the feedback from Manish on our solution in the next class.

A clear advantage of teaching this case online is that we are able to connect with the company, bring the CEO to a live class, establish parallel teams to work on the solutions, and learn from the CEO himself as to the efficacy of the solution we proposed. Additionally, the students learn the technology together in the demo presented in class and are able to connect not only to the content but also the context of the case.”

4. The Case of the Unidentified Industries, 2018

Mihir A. Desai, Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance, Harvard Business School

Excerpted from Professor Desai’s Inside the Case video :

“I developed versions of this case over the last 10 years as I was seeking a tool that would allow me to introduce finance in a rigorous but accessible way to audiences who might feel that finance could be intimidating or challenging.

This case’s format of a puzzle, almost like a game, is a really fun way to let people in so they discover finance is actually really fun. Although some of the concepts might be new to them, students quickly develop some really big intuitions about finance and the process. I’ve found this case to be the ideal way to introduce a finance course, and to introduce the idea of finance to MBA students, undergrads, and even executives.”

“I have taught this case online, and it’s really fun. I mean, the key thing to remember is the case takes some time, especially if you are willing to really explore what all those different ratios and numbers do, and it can take two sessions. So, in that kind of setting, I think the key thing to remember with online teaching is that I’ve at least found it to be somewhat less efficient. I just get through less. And so, some of the places you can go down a path, yet you might want to curtail that a little bit more.

For example, I take the bank, which is one of the first companies to be identified, and in traditional classrooms I do a little digression on banks. And when you’re doing it online, it’s just too costly to do that because it can take five or 10 minutes in a way that maybe would not happen in a classroom. So, the only thing I would say that’s really different about being online is you may want to just trim your sails a little bit in terms of the amount that you try to accomplish.”

Additional comments from Professor Desai:

“One of the challenges to teaching online is keeping attention and energy high. The Case of the Unidentified Industries, 2018 is a challenging but doable puzzle, so it provides lots of intrigue and morsels of rewards along the way to sustain an online format. Finally, it culminates in a tidy resolution, which provides students with a great feeling of satisfaction. The case can be punctuated with lots of shorter opportunities for breakout rooms where smaller groups can tackle a piece of the puzzle and then reconvene to share their ideas. Ideally, you could teach it over two one-and-a-quarter-hour sessions, with over 10 breakout rooms of three minutes each spread along the way. Students can prepare in advance or do it on the fly. To me, it’s the perfect antidote to the cold medium of online teaching.”

5. “Dear White Boss…”

Meredith Burnett, Professorial Lecturer, Kogod School of Business at American University

“This Harvard Business Review article , which behaves much like a case, is about Black employees working in a majority white work environment. They feel like their work is monotonous. The job is very transactional. It’s about making numbers and motivating people to get those numbers, and if they don’t make it, they’re fired. But at the same time, their managers have created such a tense work environment that employees are reluctant to excel in the workplace, or even to contribute at the best level that they can. The case features a fictitious letter written from the perspective of a Black manager to a white boss explaining the tension and stress they feel. The letters describe how it feels to be Black employees. Written from the heart, they talk about how they feel alienated and that they are expected to be the official interpreters for other Black people in the workplace. They also feel like they’re always on the spot, being held personally culpable for every situation involving Black people in the workplace. It’s as if they are the authority on race relations just for being Black.

Even though it’s an older case, I enjoy teaching it because every year there’s something going on that makes this relevant. This semester, what I did differently online is I had students write their own letters and post them to the discussion forum. My students wrote over 100 letters, whether to a fictitious boss or a real one, and I found it useful to see how my 20- to 21-year-old students are experiencing race right now, especially when race is salient for them. It also prepares them for some of the issues that they may face as new entrants into the workforce.

It’s interesting because the majority of my students are not Black, so most of these letters were written by white students—giving them a voice on a subject that they may not otherwise be asked about and an opportunity to speak up about how management should be handling issues around race.

Because the letters are posted to the discussion board, students get to see every other student’s letter and comment. They give feedback to each other on the content of their letters and see how other students who are not like themselves feel about what the most important issues are around race in their organization.

I then take the letters and put them in a word cloud, which allows me to look visually at what students believe are the most important issues in a workplace around diversity, equity, and inclusion. In an online setting, it’s hard to create engagement, but this allows students to see what their classmates are really thinking and feeling. We would never have been able to do that during in-person class time—in 75 minutes, you might hear from a few students with big voices. Doing this online, students have been able to participate extensively.”

6. Unilever’s New Global Strategy: Competing Through Sustainability

Christopher A. Bartlett, Thomas D. Casserly, Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Excerpted from Professor Bartlett’s Inside the Case video :

“To be honest, I never intended to write this case. I think this case found me. I’d already retired after writing 100 or more teaching notes and cases and other pedagogic material. I was reading a Harvard Business Review article titled ‘Captain Planet,’ and it was an interview with Paul Polman, who had recently been appointed CEO of Unilever. Paul made some passionate statements, such as, ‘I want to double sales at Unilever by 2020,’ and, ‘I want to halve our carbon footprint at the same time.’ Then to my great amusement, he said, ‘And by the way, I don’t want any hedge funds investing.’ He wanted long-term investors who were sympathetic to and supportive of what he was trying to do. So, I thought, this is an interesting company and an interesting guy. I learned a huge amount and had a great deal of fun writing this case, and I hope you learn as much and have as much fun teaching it.”

“When it comes to the challenge of keeping Zoom-fatigued students engaged in online learning, this case gives you a lot of opportunities to keep them engaged and involved. There’s 13 minutes of video that can be introduced at four stages through the lesson. There’s also, up early, opportunities for breakouts around the role playing—the four role-playing roles can assemble in breakout groups and then come back into the main discussion.

At the end of the class, there is a decision—students choose which of three options they should decide on. And again, this is a perfect opportunity to bring in online polling. So, it will enrich and give variety to the teaching plan that’s outlined in the teaching note.”

Additional comments from Professor Bartlett on how his approach changed in teaching the case online:

“One of the main differences in online case teaching is recognizing the reality of Zoom fatigue. One effective way to respond is to bring more pedagogic variety into the class to reengage attention and drive discussion. In-class video supplements have long provided such a powerful way to enrich the classroom experience, and now online tools such as breakout rooms and online polling offer additional ways to keep students engaged and to energize discussion.”

7. Showrooming at BestBuy

Chen Lin, Assistant Professor of Marketing, CEIBS

“My favorite case to teach online is Showrooming at BestBuy . Of course, this is a classic case with a well-defined question, strong theoretical support, and a good execution outcome that is great to teach whether you’re online, offline, or hybrid. We have to be sympathetic that online students this year have lots to deal with in their lives—so picking a case that’s simple, prevalent, and easy enough for them to understand the question (even if they don’t have time to fully read and digest the case) is an important first step to ensuring a successful discussion.

I did need to make some adjustments to teach this case online. Previously, in in-person settings, I would come up to students and randomly pick them to role play—either as the BestBuy manager, the price-sensitive customer, the supplier, or the Amazon manager. Students would often jump in to help their peers (‘Oh, I would also do X’ or ‘No, that’s not going to work’). In an online setting, because the communication process is more sequential than simultaneous, we lose these important dynamics if we don’t play up these subtle classroom rapports. So, it’s important to give students a few extra minutes for breakout discussion to put together their thoughts in a cohesive structure.

To teach this case online, I use Zoom’s poll function and breakout rooms. I don’t just use pre-set polls; I also create live polls on the spot. For example, ‘Student A’s point is interesting. Do you agree with their proposal that we should reduce the size of the showroom?’ The flow looks more natural using polls this way, and students get a chance to further develop their arguments. Good-paced polls and breakout sessions also help the online students direct their attention back every 15 to 20 minutes.

In short, one of the biggest differences of teaching cases online is that we need to find creative ways to chop long, sequential, one-way communication arguments into short, interactive, group-based responses. Digital tools such as polls and breakout rooms help, but more important is choosing a case that is conducive to facilitating a simple design of paced interactions.”

8. Benevento Foods: When the Rubber Hits the Dough

David Wood, Faculty Member, Ivey Business School

“For most of us, case teaching was exclusively an in-person practice until March of 2020. Fortunately, we have learned that online case teaching can be equally as effective when adaptations are made to a traditional teaching plan. Benevento Foods is a good example of the potential for an online case learning experience. I use this case to introduce my students to quality management.

Now online, I have replaced traditional readings with videos and activities so students can practice the key concepts that they need in order to analyze the case. Students then work together in their learning teams to complete the quantitative analysis before discussing the case asynchronously. With a good understanding of the basics, the synchronous class can focus on the more challenging aspects of quality management—people. I use the responses from students to offer an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning. I use random breakout rooms to dive deeper into the root cause of the problem. And students help each other by posting and sharing their completed models and analyses. Class is lively and full of those precious ‘aha moments’ just like when we were back on campus. Then, when class concludes, students go online to complete their learning journals, where they record their most important takeaways from Benevento Foods. ”

9. Dollar Shave Club

Karin Kollenz-Quetard, Professor of Strategy and Innovation, EDHEC Business School

“Hi, my name is Karen Kollenz, and I’m a teacher of strategy and innovation at EDHEC Business School in France. My favorite case to teach online is Dollar Shave Club . Why? Well, there are three reasons.

First, it’s a highly versatile case; I teach it in my strategy courses and in my innovation courses. And I know from colleagues that they teach it in marketing and entrepreneurship. You can teach it to all kinds of audiences. I teach it mainly with master level students, MBAs, but also with executive audiences. And I know of a colleague who has discussed the case with undergrad audiences. And last but not least, it can be adapted to different lengths. I’ve used it in one-and-a-half-hour sessions, but I’ve also used it as the basis for six hours of discussion with executives. Of course, if you talk about it for a day, you go a little bit beyond the case. So that means for us teachers, we prepare one case and we can use it in many different courses and with many different audiences.

The second reason why I like Dollar Shave Club is because it’s highly interactive. Basically, it’s super easy with this case to change the topic and the activity every 15 minutes, which I believe is really necessary for online teaching. I do use polls; I do use quizzes, mainly with Socrative, but I’ve also tried Poll Everywhere. And for short voting, I use “hand up” or the polls that are included in Zoom or Blackboard Collaborate. I also do breakout groups—at least one every one-and-a-half hours. Sometimes I do short buzz groups in addition to that, where I send students to discuss a topic for two to five minutes.

And the third reason why I love Dollar Shave Club is it’s just fun to teach. We laugh a lot in class; the advertisements for Dollar Shave Club are just hilarious. I have not seen a single student who doesn’t love watching these ads. And everybody can relate to shaving, so it’s really easy to start a discussion.

What have I changed when moving it online? Well, I think one of the main things I changed was the videos I used to show in class. That doesn’t really work perfectly in an online setting. So now I share the links in the chat, and the students watch the videos individually. Of course, as with every case, there are more planned interactions with all students using polls, quizzes, etc., as I already mentioned, which is the case for anything that you move from face to face to online. So, don’t hesitate to contact me if you think I can help you in teaching Dollar Shave Club .”

10. Uber Africa: Making Cash and Alternative Payments Work in Kenya Through Contextual Leadership

Caren B. Scheepers, Associate Professor, University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science

“I love to teach my Uber case online, whether MBA or MPhil or executive education (corporate programs). I coauthored two cases on Uber, one about Uber in Kenya, where customers’ reluctance to use credit cards resulted in a cash option and mobile money option that had to be designed, and another one on Uber South Africa’s business-model innovation response to COVID-19. I have brought in the CEO to be a guest speaker online, and the students loved it.

Another case that I love to teach is one that won the European Foundation for Case Management (EFMD) award for the best written case in Africa. It’s about SweepSouth , an electronic platform for domestic workers, which is a commercial organization with a social value creation focus. Students identify with this platform easily too, since we call it the “Uber of domestic workers,” and it works well in teaching my class entitled Contextualizing Women Entrepreneurship.

Both of these cases demonstrate the strength of the sharing economy and the impact on the triple bottom line, especially for Uber, with its sharing of rides having a positive impact on conserving our planet.

I also make a point of writing and teaching cases where the protagonist is a Black man or Black woman to balance the focus on cases with white male protagonists. ( SweepSouth features a mixed-race female entrepreneur).”

Karthik Ramanna is a professor of business and public policy at the University of Oxford, where he is also director of the Oxford MPP and of the Oxford Case Centre on Public Leadership. He was previously on the faculty of Harvard Business School.

Laura Huang is an associate professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Prior to joining HBS, she was an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Her research examines early-stage entrepreneurship, and the role of interpersonal relationships and implicit factors in the investment decisions of financiers such as angel investors and VCs.

Anna A. Tavis is a professor and academic director of the Human Capital Management Department at NYU School of Professional Studies, senior fellow with the Conference Board, and the academic in residence with Executive Networks. She was named for inclusion in Thinkers50 Radar for 2020.

Mihir A. Desai is the Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School and a professor of law at Harvard Law School. His areas of expertise include tax policy, international finance, and corporate finance.

Meredith Burnett is a professorial lecturer in the Kogod School of Business at American University. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of organizational behavior and human resource management, and her research examines how individual differences and human resource policies interact to influence employee behavior. She is particularly interested in examining how these factors influence outcomes such as employee retention and employee knowledge sharing.

Christopher A. Bartlett is the Thomas D. Casserly, Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School. As a practicing manager prior to HBS, he worked as a marketing manager with Alcoa in Australia, as a management consultant in McKinsey’s London office, and as the country general manager of Baxter Laboratories’ subsidiary company in France. His research interests after joining HBS in 1979 focused on the strategic and organizational challenges confronting managers in large, complex corporations, and on the organizational and managerial impact of transformational change.

Chen Lin is an assistant professor of marketing at CEIBS and a former assistant professor of marketing at the Eli Broad College of Business, Michigan State University. Her research interests include digital and social media, internet marketing, and empirical marketing models. She has taught marketing research, digital marketing, and business technology innovation at the EMBA, EED, and MBA levels, and has been a marketing columnist for SINA Finance , Forbes , and Economist EIU.

David Wood is a member of the faculty in operations management at Ivey Business School, as well as a graduate of both the HBA and MBA programs. He spent many years in industry as the director of sales and marketing and then as vice president of manufacturing before becoming president for W. C. Wood Company, a global manufacturer of home appliances. He has written many cases on process design, quality management, and operations strategy. Wood is the coauthor of a series of books on learning with cases and writing cases, and he has won a number of teaching awards, including the David G. Burgoyne Teaching Award and Outstanding Case Teacher from The Case Centre.

Karin Kollenz-Quetard is professor of strategy and innovation at EDHEC Business School, and she also intervenes in customized programs at other business schools such as London Business School (UK) and HEC (France). She develops and delivers face-to-face and online executive-management development programs and keynotes with a focus on strategy and innovation. In December 2016, Karin was named one of the world’s leading business school professors by Financial Times .

Caren B. Scheepers is an associate professor at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), University of Pretoria. She lectures on strategic implementation, MBA electives titled Contextual Leadership Intelligence and Diversity and Inclusion (Identity Work), and on strategic leadership on the MPhil in corporate strategy. She also developed and is hosting a GIBS Online Strategic Leadership course. She is also passionate about executive education programs and supporting companies in their strategy execution.

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How the Pandemic Inspired Brands to Rethink their Marketing Strategy: 3 quick case studies

This article was originally published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter .

“As a global pandemic grips modern society, most of the conversation has focused around the negative impacts facing individuals, organizations and society as a whole. Many people are hurting today. That cannot be understated. However, even COVID-19 has a silver lining. Deeply painful experiences can also be deeply transformational,” said Flint McGlaughlin, CEO and Managing Director, MECLABS Institute (from The Hidden Opportunity Within the COVID-19 Crisis: Three ways to transform your work and your life ).

Marketing is a tough job. Once you’ve sized up the competition, finally understood your customers, determined the best marketing technology to use, and identified your top-performing channels – well, everything changes.

Changes writ both large (a global pandemic) and small (a new feature in your competitor’s product) are thrown at us marketers constantly. The successful among us don’t just adapt to these changes, they find new ways to deliver value and thrive.

And lest you think this is a common phenomenon driven solely by technology, let me remind you of some wisdom from 2,500 years ago – even back then, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus said, “the only constant in life is change.”

It’s the only constant in your marketing career as well.

So to help you thrive in times of change, we look back over the past year and bring you stories of three brands that rethought their marketing strategy during the pandemic. First up, a tourism association that optimized its on-site SEO to be ready when the lockdowns lifted. Next, how Webex by Cisco saw the need to rebrand for customers who were forced to work and collaborate differently because of the pandemic. And finally, real estate agents that made a 180-degree shift on its customer strategy.

Quick Case Study #1: Tourism association increases website visits 88% by making on-site SEO changes

In 2019, traffic to the Outback Queensland Tourism Association (OQTA) was on a downward trend. The OQTA website had enjoyed a strong peak through the middle of 2019, however the traffic dropped back toward the end of the year as new website content started to slow and public relations around the Year of the Outback began to naturally come to an end.

2020 started reasonably solid, however, the lockdowns in March significantly reduced holiday interest in the region and traffic volume suffered greatly.

This wasn’t a new problem caused by the pandemic per se, but with so much beyond the team’s control thanks to the global souring of the tourism industry, the team had a new urgency to maximize the performance of everything they could control. While lockdowns were still in place, the team worked on search engine optimization (SEO) to make sure the website would be given the best possible chance of recovering and capturing traffic once lockdowns were lifted.

“SEO is the primary way that travelers find out about the holiday options that are available in the outback, and as a marketing channel organic search consistently delivers the highest portion of new visitors who have never experienced the region before,” said Denise Brown, CEO, Outback Queensland Tourism Association.

Outback Queensland’s website had enjoyed years of blog content creation and had amassed hundreds of blog articles covering topics about outback travel from every angle. Unfortunately, this content wasn’t guided by what is best from a search engine visibility perspective. This approach worked reasonably well when the website content was always being refreshed, but once the new content started to dry up, so did the traffic.

They team used an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to audit the website and identified numerous penalties on key traffic-driving pages – duplicate content, on-page SPAM penalties, and poor internal link flow. To remedy these issues, they:

• Restructured internal link flow – pointed additional on-page contextual links internally to the focus pages
• Removed broken links and cleaned up page rank leakage points – eliminated 400+ broken internal links, opening up link flow previously blocked or pooled in dead-ends
• Rewrote meta title tags to be shorter and more focused on the key phrase
• Boosted the domain rank of the home page by optimizing on-page content and its position within the site hierarchy based on the key phrase “outback”
• Removed some links from the footer that were spreading page rank too thinly to non-relevant pages
• Reviewed all internal anchor text and adjusted non-relevant anchor text (e.g. ‘click here’) to either contain the key phrase or a phrase within the basket of keywords
• Reduced inter-page content duplication by adding unique content to target pages with a priority to increase the ratio of unique non-keyword focused content.

“The rise of AI tools for SEO is bringing about a renaissance in how we think about the field. There are AI solutions for content generation, backlink recommendations, schema mapping, and prioritization, all of which are driving better outcomes. Dealing with a site like Outback Queensland posed unique challenges in SEO, given the number of search terms they wanted to rank for. But we found that by targeting our main efforts on a few of the most important keywords, and then doing site-wide tasks like sculpting the site’s link flow and reducing algorithmic penalties on the ranking pages, we were able to lift the site’s rankings across a huge array of search terms,” said Chris Pahor, Chief Operating Officer, Brewco (Outback Queensland’s SEO platform).

The team increased traffic volume with zero investment in paid media, without prospecting for any new backlinks from external websites, and without creating any new pages or content (except for changing a few sentences on key pages).

Although rankings are typically more of a longer-term objective, the technical tune-up work had a flow-on effect to the whole site. For example, the site’s search engine results page (SERP) ranking for the critical phrase “map of Queensland” (due to the increase of road-trip style holidays) increased from #4 to #1, generating additional monthly search traffic exposure of 33,100.

The changes the team made lead to an 88 percent increase in traffic compared to the previous year (an additional 92,947 visits) and moved the company to position one in Google for 10 high-value keywords (like maps and town names). For every $1 spent on this SEO project, the website gained $22 of traffic value.

Not only did more people visit the website, they clicked on more content, stayed longer on the site and converted at a higher rate than the previous year. Pages per session increased from 3.82 to 4.25. Website visitors spent an additional 29 seconds on the site – average session duration increased from 2:10 to 2:39.

Ultimately OQTA is a referral website. When looking at lead numbers, in comparison to 2019 (before any dedicated SEO was done on the Outback Queensland website), operator leads from organic search increased 477%.

Quick Case Study #2: Pandemic inspires global brand Cisco Webex to rethink its entire marketing strategy and logo

“As the world was thrust into unchartered territory during the pandemic, with a confluence of work/life challenges imposed, we knew we needed to adapt our business to meet a whole new level of demand from a new cross-section of customers,” said Aruna Ravichandran, VP/Chief Marketing Officer, Webex Collaboration Marketing at Cisco .

Cisco Webex has traditionally been known as a web conferencing company. The rebrand was meant to shift legacy mindsets so customers would recognize the brand as a hybrid collaboration platform – helping customers as the companies continue to need to work with both in-office and remote employees at the same time.

Creative Sample #1: Cisco Webex logo before rebrand launch

“Branding should focus on one core principle – an ultimate reason for being,” Ravichandran said. For example, she says Webex by Cisco’s core purpose is about creating an inclusive global workforce, without boundaries, where the digital and physical are one seamless experience, focused on how people work, rather than where people work.

To further underscore the focus on inclusivity, the new logo’s “W” is a rotating double helix meant to show two hands coming together – a metaphor for teams in a flow state/in the zone, each member participating and contributing equally to create something wonderful.

Creative Sample #2: Webex by Cisco logo after rebrand launch

The redesigned website defines inclusivity as “Equal experiences for everyone regardless of geography, language, or communication style.” (As someone who has occasionally worked from home while the rest of the team was in the office, I can feel that pain point viscerally.)

The top of the website clearly states the specific products the company offers – “One app for everything. And everyone. Calling, meetings, messaging, and events in the cloud for teams of all sizes.”

And lower-down on the page, the messaging leans into the new way of working – “The future of work is hybrid. Webex powers a new way of collaborating that’s centered around the work you do, not where you do it—whether it’s in the office, at home, or anywhere in between.”

“Since we are a SaaS-based (software-as-a-service-based) product, our branding is reflected directly in the product and early results show an incredible response. We’ve received very positive feedback from analysts, press, and customers, and early results show that the feedback has been extremely positive,” Ravichandran said.

Quick Case Study #3: Real estate agents change ideal customer focus to help increase come-list-me calls

“The epic housing shortage that began before the pandemic and then was exacerbated by it may finally be starting to ease up,” said Diana Olick on CNBC .

The increase in housing listings may be due in part to a shift in the marketing strategy by companies in the real estate industry

“We made a marketing pivot due to Covid-19 effects on the real estate market. We have always had strong Google search engine presence here in San Diego but primarily our on-page marketing was positioned towards attracting the luxury buyer. The real estate market in San Diego has always been fast paced however February 2021 due to high buyer demand and lack of inventory our real estate market is now unprecedented. Homes are selling in one to two days on market, no inspection or appraisal contingency, and over ask,” said Joy Aumann, co-founder, LuxurySoCalRealty .

As demand from buyers outstripped available homes in San Diego this year, LuxurySoCalRealty shifted its focus to luxury sellers from the prior focus on high-end buyers.

The team defined their new ideal audience based on the current trends and forecast in the market. 

Many sellers can’t sell because they have nowhere to go. For example, if a seller owns a home that they bought for two million dollars and can now get three-and-a-half million dollars – that’s wonderful. But where will that seller go? In order for the disposition and new acquisition costs to make sense, the family would need to upgrade the neighborhood, home size, amenities, etc. and that would probably cost them a million dollars more now as well thanks to increased home costs, higher property taxes, etc.

So the team decided their ideal client is a seller who lives out of state with a property in San Diego that is an investment property or second home, someone relocating out of San Diego, or someone with the intent on downsizing.

The team redesigned its website to speak directly to these types of sellers. The new seller page hosts a video explaining the real estate agents’ representation and listing marketing. It also includes a carousel of marketing videos for past listings so potential sellers can see for themselves how the agents market properties. This marketing attracts higher-end sellers looking for full service.

 “Having the video almost as a mini-listing pitch has enhanced our marketing efforts with our ideal audience,” Aumann explains.

There is also a new page under the new “Sell” tab in the top nav that offers updated monthly market reports to support the company’s focus on high-end clientele. The team continuously updates real estate market data important to HNWI (high net worth individual) sellers. “We didn’t have a ‘how’s the real estate market’ page. That is now one of our highest organic traffic sources,” she said.

Creative Sample #3: New content page on real estate agents’ website

Clients can also request a full real estate market report for every ZIP code in San Diego.

“Removing some components from the home page and focusing all copy on sellers now has us ranking on page one of Google for various keyword search variations of ‘Realtor’ or ‘real estate agent’ and ‘San Diego’ which was a huge win,” Aumann said.

So far the initiative has brought in four come-list-me calls in 90 days. Before the changes, the website only received one to two per year.

“For days I studied other top competitors nationwide and in Canada that use search engine marketing to start formulating a plan on how we could do better. This research is imperative even if you have an initial idea,” Aumann said.

Related Resources

An Inspirational Guide for Uncertain Times: 7 ideas and resources for marketers and business leaders to help spark your next great success

8 Examples of How Business Owners and Marketing Leaders Can Respond to the Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic

What 2020 Has Taught Marketers: 8 essential marketing lessons

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How business adapted - COVID-19 case studies

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Since the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world earlier this year and countries went into nationwide lockdowns, businesses (where possible) have had to quickly adapt their operations in order to accommodate employees and service customers.

What has become clear over this incredibly turbulent period is that companies that had been making savvy digital investments pre-COVID-19 were the most resilient and best placed to weather the storm. Furthermore, we are seeing evidence that trends (cloud, digital collaboration, analytics) that were happening in the market have now accelerated and that technology investment decisions are front of mind.

Since March diginomica has been documenting and speaking to companies about how they have responded to the global health crisis - where their pain points are, how they've remained agile, what their priorities are going forward, and what the pandemic will mean for the future of their business.

You can find all of our  COVID-19 related content in the dedicated diginomica hub , but we thought it might be a good idea to collate some of our top case study picks for easy reference. We hope that as a resource this will prove useful for companies looking for guidance.

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet - how we're dealing with Coronavirus and how it's impacting our clients needs

Service giant Accenture has been tracking client behaviour, but has also been issuing guidance on how it has responded to COVID-19. CEO Julia Sweet outlines how Accenture operates a virtual team structure, has a crisis management committee, and is focused on staff retention.

Insurance software provider CDL uses ServiceNow for business continuity during COVID-19

UK-based insurance software provider CDL had the foresight to have a business continuity plan, which included scenario planning for pandemics. The company is cloud-first, people-focused and has been using ServiceNow to monitor the health of employees.

Paymentsense proves agility during Coronavirus thanks to Google Cloud migration

Paymentsense is one of Europe's fastest growing fintech companies, offering small businesses an affordable payment processing service and software. The company recently migrated to Google Cloud Platform, which has given it a new level of agility and helped it better respond to COVID-19.

HR in the limelight - Chief People Officers share their top priorities during Coronavirus pandemic

At the core of almost every business' response to COVID-19 is how it effectively empowers its people. With this in mind, diginomica spoke to a number of HR leaders about what is front of mind for them. The key takeaways include engagement and wellbeing, a new approach to management, and coaching and development.

No need to call ‘cut!' - Workplace from Facebook keeps the National Film and Television School teaching during COVID-19

The National Film and Television School found that its use of Workplace from Facebook really came to the fore during the health crisis, allowing for information to be shared, for students to participate in their education and for the entire school community to stay connected.

COVID's 'penny drops' moment - TSB's Chief Operating Officer on why there's no turning back for customers from banking's digital shift

Banking firm TSB has found that the organisation's customer base has undergone an enforced shift to digital, thanks to COVID-19, and the bank itself has accelerated its digital transformation journey. Learnings have been made and TSB is thinking about how it can remove its dependencies on analog aspects of its operating model.

Delivering IT services in a pandemic - how the City of Seattle's IT team has risen to the challenge of COVID-19

The CIty of Seattle is a local government entity of approximately 15,000 employees with an IT department of 700. Since the pandemic hit the US, the IT team has been at the forefront of ensuring delivery of vital citizen services - and demand over the period has soared.

COVID's digital DIY boom - how Home Depot and Lowe's omni-channel retail prep rode out the pandemic crisis

One sector that definitely saw success from the government issued stay at home orders was the home improvement industry. Lowe's and Home Depot effectively own the US market on this front and both have benefited from their prior multi-year omni-channel transformation efforts, as online transactions rose.

Salesforce Live - how AXA PPP Healthcare stabilized the business during COVID-19

Salesforce Live, unsurprisingly, had a strong focus on companies' response to the global health crisis. AXA PPP healthcare, one of the largest insurance organisations in the world, was speaking at the event and shared how it is working to keep its employees safe and to ensure that critical services for customers could continue to be delivered.

Salesforce Live - how the Co-op copes with higher customer support demand during COVID-19

The UK's Co-Operative Group - a £10 billion a year operation that includes food, e-pharmacy, insurance services, legal services and funeral care - also took the ‘stage' at Salesforce Live and outlined how it is still focusing on personalized service for customers, but with renewed emphasis on empathy, effectiveness and efficiency.

Kroger opens up its COVID retail survival playbook to its peers - and eats its own digital dog food

US grocery giant Kroger went further than most other retailers and shared its strategic response to COVID-19 in the form of a written playbook for its peers. Some of the advice includes identifying high risk locations, analysing staffing in areas badly impacted by the virus, and urging a focus on speed rather than tooling.

How one of the largest NHS Trusts in the UK switched to digital collaboration to help fight COVID-19

The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK faced a daunting and mammoth task in helping care for Coronavirus patients and responding effectively to the health crisis. One of the NHS's largest Trusts, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals, has placed a particular emphasis on digital collaboration for both practitioners and patients.

The Salvation Army gives its organization a voice with rollout of Microsoft Teams

Digital collaboration tools have unsurprisingly seen a huge surge during the pandemic, as offices closed down and organisations shifted to distributed workforces. The Salvation Army's use of Microsoft Teams allowed the international charity to continue providing essential services, such as distributing food and supplying medical care, as well as being able to continue to support staff through this difficult period.

Levi's plans to accelerate e-commerce and invest in AI initiatives to help reduce COVID-19 pain

Denim giant Levi's suffered huge losses during the first three months of the COVID-19 lockdowns, as a result of nationwide store closures. However, Levi's is confident about its investments to date and its digital plans going forward, which include modernising its processes, adapting its omni-channel approach, as well as investing in data and AI.

An inside look at how HMRC delivered its rapid COVID-19 response

HMRC is the UK's tax office and is the government department responsible for developing and launching the schemes that were designed to support the UK through the Coronavirus pandemic. HMRC has been on a long transformation journey over the past decade, which helped it respond effectively when needing to launch the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, the Self Employed Income Support Team and the Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme.

IoT is icing on the cake for Göbecke Bakery's back-to-work strategy

Göbecke Bakery is run by the fourth-generation, sister-and-brother team of Christine and Matthias Göbecke, who have managed to keep it up and running during the Covid-19 lockdown, with reduced working hours and careful management of employee shifts. They're getting back to full operations, while also keeping staff safe, using Smart Social Distancing technology built on Software AG's Internet of Things (IoT) platform.

Bupa closely tracks global employee engagement with Glint during COVID-19 crisis

International healthcare provider and multi-insurance group Bupa employs over 83,000 people. Chief People Officer Nigel Sullivan tells diginomica how the organisation is using technology from LinkedIn's Glint to find out how those employees are coping with lockdowns and sustained working from home. Access to this data during the pandemic has helped Bupa respond to its employees' needs.

DFS unites its four furniture brands with G Suite collaboration

DFS is a household name in the UK and the largest furniture retailer in the market, operating under four different brands. Back in 2019 it began on a journey to bring its employees closer together, across all its organisations, by rolling out collaboration platform, G Suite. The project was serendipitous in that it has helped the DFS Group respond swiftly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Pandemic Changed Us. Now Companies Have to Change Too.

• Jennifer Moss

Employees are renegotiating their social contracts with work. Here’s what employers need to do to honor their end of the bargain.

During the pandemic, the global workforce was toiling away under the weight of chronic stress, financial insecurity, and collective grief. We became exhausted, self-efficacy decreased, and cynicism grew. It’s no wonder that people eventually hit the wall and started leaving their jobs in droves. One of the biggest reasons why people left? Unsustainable workloads. Still, many organizations kept marching ahead. Stretch goals remained, despite employees being unable to meet the demand. Too many employees were pushed past their breaking points. Now, employers are finally starting to listen, as employees renegotiate their social contracts with work. Mental health awareness, a focus on increasing fairness, hybrid offerings and flexible hours, more active listening, real-time feedback, and personalizing communication are all initiatives that are working to solve issues around burnout in a more upstream manner than we’ve seen before. Leaders are beginning to have a clearer understanding that new workplace policies are not just “nice to haves,” but a necessity going forward.

It may sound obvious, but facing our collective mortality for the last two years changed us. Of course, many of us had confronted big challenges in our pre-pandemic lives, but this shared experience was uniquely difficult. One area of our lives that was dramatically altered was our collective perspective related to work.

• Jennifer Moss is a workplace expert, international public speaker, and award-winning journalist. She is the bestselling author of  Unlocking Happiness at Work (Kogan Page, 2016) and The Burnout Epidemic  (HBR Press, September 2021).

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Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies of 2021

Two cases about Hertz claimed top spots in 2021's Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies

Two cases on the uses of debt and equity at Hertz claimed top spots in the CRDT’s (Case Research and Development Team) 2021 top 40 review of cases.

Hertz (A) took the top spot. The case details the financial structure of the rental car company through the end of 2019. Hertz (B), which ranked third in CRDT’s list, describes the company’s struggles during the early part of the COVID pandemic and its eventual need to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

The success of the Hertz cases was unprecedented for the top 40 list. Usually, cases take a number of years to gain popularity, but the Hertz cases claimed top spots in their first year of release. Hertz (A) also became the first ‘cooked’ case to top the annual review, as all of the other winners had been web-based ‘raw’ cases.

Besides introducing students to the complicated financing required to maintain an enormous fleet of cars, the Hertz cases also expanded the diversity of case protagonists. Kathyrn Marinello was the CEO of Hertz during this period and the CFO, Jamere Jackson is black.

Sandwiched between the two Hertz cases, Coffee 2016, a perennial best seller, finished second. “Glory, Glory, Man United!” a case about an English football team’s IPO made a surprise move to number four.  Cases on search fund boards, the future of malls,  Norway’s Sovereign Wealth fund, Prodigy Finance, the Mayo Clinic, and Cadbury rounded out the top ten.

Other year-end data for 2021 showed:

• Online “raw” case usage remained steady as compared to 2020 with over 35K users from 170 countries and all 50 U.S. states interacting with 196 cases.
• Fifty four percent of raw case users came from outside the U.S..
• The Yale School of Management (SOM) case study directory pages received over 160K page views from 177 countries with approximately a third originating in India followed by the U.S. and the Philippines.
• Twenty-six of the cases in the list are raw cases.
• A third of the cases feature a woman protagonist.
• Orders for Yale SOM case studies increased by almost 50% compared to 2020.
• The top 40 cases were supervised by 19 different Yale SOM faculty members, several supervising multiple cases.

CRDT compiled the Top 40 list by combining data from its case store, Google Analytics, and other measures of interest and adoption.

All of this year’s Top 40 cases are available for purchase from the Yale Management Media store .

And the Top 40 cases studies of 2021 are:

1.   Hertz Global Holdings (A): Uses of Debt and Equity

2.   Coffee 2016

3.   Hertz Global Holdings (B): Uses of Debt and Equity 2020

4.   Glory, Glory Man United!

5.   Search Fund Company Boards: How CEOs Can Build Boards to Help Them Thrive

6.   The Future of Malls: Was Decline Inevitable?

7.   Strategy for Norway's Pension Fund Global

8.   Prodigy Finance

9.   Design at Mayo

10. Cadbury

11. City Hospital Emergency Room

13. Volkswagen

14. Marina Bay Sands

15. Shake Shack IPO

16. Mastercard

17. Netflix

18. Ant Financial

19. AXA: Creating the New CR Metrics

20. IBM Corporate Service Corps

21. Business Leadership in South Africa's 1994 Reforms

22. Alternative Meat Industry

23. Children's Premier

24. Khalil Tawil and Umi (A)

25. Palm Oil 2016

26. Teach For All: Designing a Global Network

27. What's Next? Search Fund Entrepreneurs Reflect on Life After Exit

28. Searching for a Search Fund Structure: A Student Takes a Tour of Various Options

30. Project Sammaan

31. Commonfund ESG

32. Polaroid

33. Connecticut Green Bank 2018: After the Raid

34. FieldFresh Foods

35. The Alibaba Group

36. 360 State Street: Real Options

37. Herman Miller

38. AgBiome

39. Nathan Cummings Foundation

40. Toyota 2010

The rise and fall of Peloton, from pandemic-era success story to its stock hitting a record low

• Peloton was a Wall Street darling during the pandemic, with a market cap of around $50 billion.
• Now, its CEO is out after two years, it announced more layoffs, and its stock hit a record low.
• Here is the history of Peloton's impressive rise and fall in recent years.

At the height of the pandemic, Peloton was on top of the world.

Its stock pushed $171 per share and its market cap hovered around $50 billion.

On Thursday, the company announced its CEO was out and its stock was trading below $3 — a record low.

The company has struggled since the pandemic boom and falling demand for its products. In 2022, the company laid off more than 5,000 staff members, saw four top executives depart, and reportedly considered a potential sale to the likes of Amazon, Apple, or Nike. The company has also seen mass layoffs and recalled millions of bikes .

It's a stunning reversal for a company once at the top of the connected-fitness food chain, and it's the result of a culmination of factors, including the fading popularity of at-home fitness and a mishandled logistics operation. 

Now, to re-energize its business, the company is focused on pushing beyond the at-home fitness market. It is incentivizing businesses to offer Peloton as a workplace benefit and adding Peloton equipment to local gyms, apartments, and hotels, Bloomberg reported.  

Here's how Peloton got its start and became a fitness world darling, and just as quickly saw its decline.

Peloton was founded in 2012 by a group of ex-IAC employees

John Foley, Hisao Kushi, Tom Cortese, and Graham Stanton — four of Peloton's five cofounders — met working at media and internet company IAC. The fifth cofounder, Yony Feng, met the group through his roommate who worked at IAC. 

Foley has said that the vision for the company was his, but that his four cofounders "took it, ran with it, and built it while I was gone" raising money, he told Fortune in 2021.

Prior to founding Peloton, Foley was president at Barnes & Noble, overseeing its e-commerce business. 

The early version of its bike was 'janky,' and it struggled to find investors

Foley is a self-professed "boutique fitness addict," as well as an avid cyclist. But the early versions of the Peloton bike didn't look like something you'd find in a high-end fitness studio, the company's first instructor, Jenn Sherman, told Fortune. 

"They had this little tiny corner of the office that was sectioned off by black velvet curtains. There was a camera on a tripod sticking through a circle people literally cut out of the curtain. There was a janky, broken bike in there — the instructor bike was like this rusted piece of crap. It was ridiculous," she said. 

Still, Sherman signed on. Meanwhile, Foley was on the road for the first three years, pitching what he told Business Insider in 2018 was as many as 400 investors. 

"I got 400 'nos,'" he said at the time. "The worst part is that we're not talking about 400 individual pitches. A lot of people would want me to come back four or five times and have me meet more partners and pitch again. I would say that I've been turned down maybe five or six thousand times."

Still, the company scraped together funding from more than 200 angel investors and put its first bike on Kickstarter in 2013 for an "early bird" price of $1,500.

Peloton quickly developed a cult following

Peloton began shipping bikes in 2014 , with Foley and the other cofounders showing off how they worked at pop-up stores inside shopping centers.

But it didn't take long for the company to develop a cult following, thanks in large part to its roster of high-wattage instructors. When the company opened its own studio in New York City, owners of the company's $2,000 bike would make a pilgrimage to Manhattan in order to take a live class with their favorite instructor. 

Eventually, big-name investors came calling. "I would say that it took about five years for the really smart money to start getting involved," Foley told BI in 2018. "When Mary Meeker is calling you to say, 'Hey, I want to invest' — that's pretty cool."

That year, Peloton raised $550 million in venture capital funding at a valuation of $4.1 billion, according to Pitchbook. 

Peloton expanded its offerings as spinning faded in popularity

Peloton introduced its second product, a $4,000 treadmill called the Peloton Tread, in 2018, and added new types of classes, like high-intensity interval training and yoga, to keep users engaged or get new customers to sign onto a digital subscription, no equipment required. 

By 2019, the company had sold 577,000 bikes and treadmills . 

In August of that year, Peloton filed for an initial public offering , revealing it had over 500,000 paying subscribers, but also spiraling losses from major investments in marketing and licensing music for its classes. 

Peloton went public on September 26, 2019 in what was at the time the third-worst trading debut for a major IPO since the financial crisis.

Peloton's stock plummeted following its 2019 holiday ad

Ahead of the holidays in 2019, Peloton made what was seen as a major public misstep with its infamous "Peloton wife" ad. 

The ad, featuring a woman whose husband gifts her a Peloton bike for Christmas, was viewed as being sexist and playing into outdated standards of beauty . Public outrage over the ad sent Peloton's stock plunging 9% , wiping out $942 million in market value in a single day. 

But Peloton stood by the commercial,  issuing a statement  saying it was "disappointed" by how people had "misinterpreted" the ad. 

The pandemic became a major boon for Peloton's business

Then, in early 2020, the pandemic hit. Suddenly stuck inside, people turned to at-home fitness and found connection in Peloton's streamed workout classes. The company's share price took off. 

By May 2020, Peloton reported a 66% increase in sales and a 94% increase in subscribers. In September of that year, Peloton said that it had had its first profitable quarter , with sales spiking 172% since the same quarter the year prior and revenue rising to $607 million. 

But the unexpected uptick in demand showed the cracks in Peloton's logistics operation. Delivery times for new equipment became longer and longer, and Peloton's typically diehard fans began expressing their frustration online . 

Then, some customers began experiencing issues with their bikes where pedals snapped off mid-ride . The company took weeks or months to make repairs, further frustrating users. After 120 reports of bikes breaking and 16 reports of customers getting injured, the company issued a recall affecting 30,000 bikes . 

Still, 2020 was all around a stellar year for Peloton that included debuting new, higher-end versions of the bike and treadmill and inking a multi-year deal with Beyoncé. A year after the "Peloton wife" ad, the company's market value had hit $34 billion . 

In early 2021, Peloton reported its first-ever billion-dollar quarter , driven by holiday sales and sustained demand for at-home fitness as the pandemic raged on. Foley pledged to manufacture "tens of millions" of treadmills and bikes to keep up with surging sales and spend $100 million to speed up deliveries hampered by port congestion. 

Peloton had to issue a treadmill recall following a child's death

But in March 2021, tragedy struck when a child was fatally injured in an accident with a Peloton treadmill. Shares dipped 4% following the news and regulators urged a recall .

Foley initially pushed back, calling the warnings "inaccurate and misleading," but by that May, the company announced a recall of the higher-end Tread+. 

Related stories

In an effort to make the treadmill safer, Peloton also made a change that resulted in it becoming unusable unless users paid $39 per month. Following customer outrage, the company said it would work on a fix. 

As the pandemic began to recede, so did Peloton's popularity

As the nation continued to move toward reopening — and returning to the gym and fitness studios — Peloton's business took a punch. The company's stock dropped 34% following its fiscal first-quarter earnings in November, which included a dismal outlook for the months ahead.  

"It is clear that we underestimated the reopening impact on our company and the overall industry," Foley said in a call with shareholders.

Peloton was also being chased by rivals like Echelon and iFit Health, which offer similar, cheaper products. Peloton filed a lawsuit against them in November 2021, accusing them of patent infringement. 

In the meantime, Peloton had been taking reputational hits. A hiring freeze set in, and Black employees voiced concerns over their pay compared with the industry standard. A character in the "Sex and the City" reboot died after using his bike, and then the same thing happened to a "Billions"character soon after. And in December, Foley threw a lavish holiday party as the company's stock tanked. 

By January 2022, the company was discussing layoffs , reportedly pausing production of new equipment, and halting plans to open a new $400 million factory . Employees told BI the company's warehouses were filled with excess bikes . 

Peloton began laying off employees, replaced Foley, and eyed a potential acquisition

In February 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon was eyeing Peloton as a potential acquisition — soon after, the Financial Times reported that Nike was considering the same. Wall Street analysts posited that Apple would be another natural fit as the new owner of Peloton. 

Days later, Foley announced that he would step down as Peloton's CEO and that the company was slashing 2,800 jobs, about 20% of its workforce. The company said that the fired employees would receive a free year's subscription to the platform, along with a "meaningful cash severance allotment" and other benefits. Its roster of instructors would not be impacted by the layoffs.

During a conference call following the company's second-quarter earnings, Foley said he took responsibility for what happened at Peloton. 

"We've made missteps along the way. To meet market demand, we scaled our operations too rapidly. And we overinvested in certain areas of our business," he said. 

"We own this. I own this. And we're holding ourselves accountable," he added.

Experts told BI  that the company fell prey to the "bullwhip effect," spending big on logistics while expecting that demand would remain high — when demand cooled, Peloton was left with costly supply chain operations that now require a major overhaul. 

Barry McCarthy , the former chief financial officer of Spotify and Netflix, replaced Foley as CEO. In a leaked memo to employees , McCarthy called the layoffs "a bitter pill" but said that the company needed to accept "the world as it is, not as we want it to be if we're going to be successful."

"Now that the reset button has been pushed, the challenge ahead of us is this…… do we squander the opportunity in front of us or do we engineer the great comeback story of the post-Covid era?" he wrote. "I'm here for the comeback story."

Foley severed his remaining ties to the company

July 2022 brought news of 570 additional job cuts , and that August, the company announced yet another round of layoffs , slashing roughly 800 customer-service and distribution team members — and raising prices on some equipment. 

In September of that year, Foley stepped down as executive chairman. Cofounder and Chief Legal Officer Hisao Kushi and Chief Commercial Officer Kevin Cornils also left the company.

In a statement, Foley said: "Now it is time for me to start a new professional chapter. I have passion for building companies and creating great teams, and I am excited to do that again in a new space. I am leaving the company in good hands." Lead independent director Karen Boone took over as chair. 

Then came the departure of another top executive: The New York Times' DealBook newsletter reported that Chief Marketing Officer Dara Treseder would exit the company that October. Treseder was instrumental in helping Peloton double its membership, which numbered more than 6.9 million at the time, a company spokesperson told DealBook.

Peloton made another round of cuts in October 2022, but McCarthy said he's 'optimistic about our future'

McCarthy told The Wall Street Journal in October 2022 that the company would cut an additional 500 employees , many of whom work on the marketing team, in an effort to cut costs. 

The report revealed that Peloton had eliminated more jobs than was previously known. About 600 additional employees had left the company since June through factors like retail store closings and attrition. That brought Peloton's total cuts for the year to over 5,200. 

The Journal also reported that McCarthy said the company had only six months to turn things around, which McCarthy later denied in a memo to employees published by Bloomberg. McCarthy said his comments were taken out of context and that he's never felt more optimistic about the company's future. 

"There is no ticking clock on our performance and even if there was, the business is performing well and making steady progress toward our year-end goal of break-even cash flow," he said. 

Peloton has indeed made several changes since last summer that could help re-energize sales: it launched its long-awaited rowing machine , started selling its gear on Amazon , and inked new deals with Dick's Sporting Goods and Hilton in hopes of attracting new customers. 

But 2023 was rough for the company

Peloton's 2023 wasn't a great cause for optimism so far, though.

That May, Peloton reported a wider-than-expected loss of 79 cents per share for the most recent quarter, and it projected its first-ever decline in subscribers.

And in a shareholder letter, McCarthy said the upcoming quarter "will be among our most challenging from a growth perspective."

And things got worse as the company had to issue a massive recall

The New York-based company announced in May 2023 that, in cooperation with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, it was doing a voluntary recall of the Peloton original Bike sold from January 2018 to May 2023 in the US for about $1,400 . Per the company, "the seat post can break unexpectedly during use, creating a potential fall and injury risk." Peloton said that as of April 30, 2023, it had identified 35 reports of seat posts breaking, out of more than 2.1 million units sold.

According to the US Consumer Product and Safety Commission, there were more than a dozen reports of injuries – including a fractured wrist, lacerations, and bruises – caused by seat posts suddenly breaking.

The recall does not impact Peloton Bike+ members nor Peloton original Bike owners in the UK, Germany, and Australia, according to the company.

Peloton now wants to be a workplace benefit for employees

Peloton is working to expand its reach beyond the at-home fitness market. The company is focused on building partnerships with businesses, including hotels, apartments, gyms, as well as education and healthcare facilities, to offer its services and equipment, Bloomberg reported.

Employees at participating businesses will receive discounts on Peloton equipment and free use of the Peloton app, which typically costs customers $24 per month and doesn't need to be used with Peloton equipment.

Peloton's next hurdle is another CEO departure and more layoffs

Peloton announced in May 2024 that CEO Barry McCarthy would be stepping down and that it's laying off around 400 workers, or roughly 15% of its total workforce.

The layoffs are part of restructuring efforts to reduce yearly expenses by more than $200 million by the end of the 2025 fiscal year, the company said. As part of these efforts, the company will also be reducing its retail showroom footprint and rethinking its international approach.

Karen Boone, the chair of Peloton's board, and Chris Bruzzo, one of its directors, will serve as interim co-CEOs. The board has already begun looking for its next CEO, the company says.

Peloton's stock was trading below $3 — a record low — following the news.

Watch: What happens when Elon Musk moves markets with a tweet

• Main content

• Open access
• Published: 06 May 2024

From isolation to revival: trade recovery amid global health crises

• Lijuan Yang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2042-6431 1  

Globalization and Health volume  20 , Article number:  38 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of designing effective trade recovery measures in response to global health events (GHEs). This study combines international trade risk management theory and multi-case comparative analysis of past GHEs to present a theoretical framework for designing national trade recovery measures for future events.

The research finds that during GHEs, trade risks shift to fundamental uncertainty, requiring spatial–temporal-subject dimension recovery measures. The study suggests changing the focus of trade recovery policy design from emergency-oriented and single-dimension measures to reserve-oriented and enduring-effect measures of comprehensive dimensions at micro- and macroeconomic levels.

The study contributes to the debate on managing trade risks in times of crisis, where there is a need to develop effective trade recovery measures that account for the complexities of global trade and the unique challenges of GHEs. The findings provide practical guidance for trade officials and policymakers to design measures in response to GHEs to improve a country’s overall trade recovery.

Global health events (GHEs), defined as pandemics or crises that widely influence people’s health, have major repercussions. Countries affected by GHEs Footnote 1 need to implement trade recovery measures to resume trade [ 1 ]. Footnote 2 These measures are crucial for mitigating the risks of capital, trade, and supply chain disruptions caused by disasters, reducing the burden of epidemics, and boosting national and global economies. Current research on GHEs is concentrated on medicine and public health issues, and only a few economic studies have been conducted [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Even this limited research has tended to peak alongside health events and bottom out when they end. The process of recovering from GHEs by taking comprehensive measures has rarely been discussed. Therefore, by applying international trade risk management theory and multi-case studies, this study examines the design of national trade recovery measures and offers countermeasures for GHEs.

Fifteen GHEs have occurred since the 1990s (Table  1 ), highlighting that their economic impact exceeds their immediate health consequences and regional spread [ 6 ]. Geographically distant health events can potentially reverberate to unaffected countries through international trade [ 7 ]. GHEs adversely affect the country of origin, trade partners, and the global economy [ 8 ]. Globalization has further exacerbated this negative impact. Footnote 3 GHEs affect foreign trade. Footnote 4 The transfer effects of trade bans can drastically harm welfare [ 9 , 10 ], leading to structural fractures in imports and exports [ 11 ]. Moreover, biosecurity measures during disease outbreaks [ 12 ] can indirectly influence technical trade measures that affect emerging countries’ exports to developed countries.

Scholars advocate the following strategies to respond to GHEs. (1) Conducting response measures. Once a global health emergency is under control, it enters the international trade recovery stage. The countries involved in the event must renegotiate trade agreements with their trading partners, strengthen consumer expectations and confidence, and evaluate response measures [ 13 , 14 ]. (2) Planning and sequencing measures. The international trade recovery must transcend the risk model to plan and prioritize trade recovery measures based on the interdependence between public health and trade [ 15 , 16 ]. The affected areas must take pre- and post-prevention and mitigation measures after the disaster outbreak [ 17 ]. (3) Implementing regional measures. The United States (US) adopted regional measures to manage the highly pathogenic avian influenza pandemic and to resume and maintain trade. Trading partner countries accepted the regional recommendations and allowed poultry and poultry product imports from US regions without the disease [ 18 ].

Furthermore, countries must address factors influencing trade recovery, as various factors determine the extent of adverse effects on trade and the duration of recovery. Emerging countries need to follow and strictly enforce the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO) [ 19 ] and deal with dynamic changes in trade and supply chain nodes during GHEs [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]. These efforts should include modeling and scenario simulation based on epidemiology and economic theory [ 25 , 26 ], risk rating of GHEs [ 27 ], and artificial intelligence modeling for potential risks [ 28 ]. The models under continuous development must reflect the dynamic landscape of emergent situations [ 29 ].

Although the WHO and multilateral institutions do not recommend interrupting international trade following a GHE, limited research has provided targeted suggestions for countries to adopt an appropriate course of action [ 30 , 31 ]. The interconnectedness of global health and the global economy highlights the need for such a policy and the relevance of health security efforts [ 7 ] to mitigate immediate health risks and long-term economic disruption. Including economic policies as part of GHE policies leads to collaboration between epidemiologists and economists in an economy-wide pandemic or public health crisis modeling, thereby demonstrating potential benefits [ 32 , 33 ].

This study posits that trade recovery is a dynamic process; hence, designing appropriate trade recovery measures should consider spatiotemporal dimensions and specific stakeholders at various subject levels. Research on developing trade recovery measures covers the spatial dimension but overlooks the time dimension. Lee et al. [ 34 ] established spatiotemporal modeling but did not distinguish different subject levels. Combining the spatiotemporal dimension and specific subject levels in trade recovery measures is essential for their success, ensuring adaptability and coverage across diverse economies. Additionally, comparative studies on countries’ trade recovery after different GHEs are limited, and research on trade recovery measures remains restricted to a single dimension. A clear framework for countermeasures is yet to be developed.

This study investigates trade recovery measures in countries affected by GHEs. The method includes a theoretical analysis based on international trade risk management with comparative multi-case studies. This methodology was developed by scholars such as Stake [ 35 ] and Yin [ 36 ], who formalized the approach as a tool for conducting in-depth explorations within real-life contexts. This qualitative research method enables the examination of complex phenomena within their specific settings, making it particularly suitable for understanding the nuanced implications of trade recovery measures across different geopolitical and socio-economic landscapes.

We construct a time–space-subject recovery measure framework, combining cases from the trade recovery measures adopted by Mexico, the US following the outbreak of influenza A H1N1, Japan following nuclear leakage triggered by a tsunami, three West African countries (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) following the outbreak of Ebola, and South Korea following the outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The framework is to design trade recovery measures for possible future events and for countries that are yet to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Historically, the case method has been leveraged in public health and international policy research [ 6 , 12 , 37 ], offering insights into policy development and implementation. Its adoption in this study, rather than more quantitative methods, allows for a deep, contextual analysis of policy effectiveness and adaptability in diverse scenarios, thereby enhancing our understanding of trade recovery strategies. The application of this framework also supports the synthesis of cross-sector policies, combining health imperatives with economic resilience to devise trade recovery roadmaps for both immediate and long-term strategic planning.

This study’s theoretical and practical contributions are as follows. (1) Exploration of spatiotemporal dimensions and subject-specific levels enriches the design of trade recovery measures, expanding extant research in international trade risk management theory by integrating contextual analysis into risk assessment and mitigation strategies. (2) A comparative analysis of consistency and heterogeneity in trade recovery measures across developed and emerging countries reveals gaps in public health emergency response mechanisms related to international trade, deepening the need for tailored strategies targeting specific economic vulnerabilities. (3) Insights obtained offer references for shaping national trade recovery policies in response to GHEs. Given the post-disaster recovery’s uncertainty, governments must enforce transformative measures [ 37 ], which are both adaptive and robust, to ensure economic stability and resilience.

Theoretical framework for designing trade recovery measures in GHE-affected countries

According to the international trade risk management theory [ 14 , 38 ], the health event emergency management system includes four stages: early warning, preventing spread, controlling or eliminating the event’s impact, and recovery. The emergency’s containment initiates the recovery phase. Countries and regions have a low proportion of recovery work in the health emergency management system, which must be fully developed for trade recovery from GHEs [ 14 ]. During the international trade recovery stage, the affected country must renegotiate trade agreements with its partners, enhance expectations, disseminate information to consumers, and evaluate the implementation effect of the trade recovery measures. Promptly identifying international trade risks and employing risk management measures can prevent and mitigate risks and ensure the smooth progression of trade.

During GHEs, trade policy, market demand, and competition vary; exchange rates between a country and its main trading partners fluctuate; or fixed rates are maintained at a significant cost, leading to objective risks. Although trade subjects cannot eliminate objective risks, they can actively prevent them. GHEs expand the scope of restrictions on the movement of people and goods, with continuously increasing uncertainty within the affected country’s trade environment. The subjective risk of decision-making errors and improper measures increases sharply as governments, organizations, and people face multiple pressures [ 39 ] and emergent behaviors.

GHE-initiated international trade risks are multidimensional, featuring a spatiotemporal evolution. Measured in time, an epidemic’s early, middle, and late stages face short- and medium-term risks. The risk extends from the epidemic’s origin to neighboring countries and major trading partners. With aggravating uncertainties and risk factors, the potential impact of GHEs on trade expands beyond short-term scales and localities, further increasing the complexity of trade recovery.

Subject levels, including international, national, industrial, enterprise, and consumer, simultaneously face systematic risks caused by GHEs. The cognitive prediction of events leads to pressure superposition, unbalanced considerations, and decision-making errors, thereby increasing the risk of improper measures. These risks are intertwined throughout GHEs, making it more difficult for affected countries to recover their normal trade levels [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Recovering from health events through only one type of measure is infeasible.

To address the international trade risks triggered by GHEs, the trade recovery countermeasures of affected countries must be strengthened in their spatiotemporal dimensions and include international, national, industrial, enterprise, and consumer groups for different subject levels. Efforts should include tracking the epidemic’s evolutionary stage and identifying its regional characteristics, as shown in [ 18 , 40 ], which highlighted the effectiveness of region-specific trade policies during the Ebola outbreak. Moreover, it is necessary establish a national trade recovery countermeasure repository featuring adequacy, flexibility, and completeness. These measures are essential to shift from an emergency single-trade recovery measure design to a comprehensive, long-term trade recovery measure design (Fig.  1 ).

Trend of goods exports in countries with GHEs, 1995–2018 (current price, USD 10 billion) . Source: Author’s analysis based on data from the World Bank Database

Comparative case study on trade recovery measures after GHEs

This study comparatively analyzed the trade recovery measures of relevant countries in the aftermath of four GHEs: the H1N1 influenza that developed in Mexico in 2009 and spread to the US, affecting both countries and their major trading partners; the 2011 Fukushima nuclear leak; the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak that spread rapidly in West Africa; and the 2015 MERS outbreak introduced to South Korea by international travelers. Despite their sudden onset, these GHEs triggered various national trade recovery measures because of differences in their nature.

A comparative case study methodology, conducive to exploring the characteristics of national trade recovery measures and the specifics of the events [ 41 ], supported by Yin [ 36 ] for its effective analysis of complex phenomena within realities, was applied. This method involves a systematic collection, comparison, and analysis of case data to identify patterns, test theories, and derive insights that are not apparent through singular case analyses. In implementing this methodology, this study meticulously documented the sequence of trade policy adjustments, timing (spatiotemporal dimensions), and targeted entities (subject dimensions) for each GHE case. This approach enabled the identification of overarching strategies that successfully mitigated trade disruptions, as well as frequent challenges across varied geopolitical and economic contexts. The analytical process involved detailed case descriptions to highlight similarities and differences in GHE impacts and trade response effectiveness. This structured analysis underscored the necessity of incorporating spatiotemporal and subject-specific considerations in formulating trade policies in response to GHEs. This leads to the argument for a nuanced, multidimensional approach to trade recovery policy-making.

Four GHEs this century

The 2009 h1n1 influenza pandemic.

The H1N1 influenza emerged in March 2009 in Mexico and the US. On June 11, 2009, the WHO declared it a global public health emergency of international concern [ 42 ], with the pandemic alert level peaking on this date [ 43 ]. The WHO declared the end of the pandemic in August 2010. In 18 months, it caused more than 18,000 deaths and affected more than 200 countries [ 44 ].

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear leak

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake struck the Pacific Ocean, causing a tsunami that triggered a nuclear leak [ 45 ]. The US announced an import ban on Japanese food from radiation-affected areas. Additionally, South Korea and the European Union issued trade bans, while China, Thailand, and Vietnam required radiation inspection certificates for food produced in Japan.

The 2014 Ebola epidemic

In March 2014, the Ebola epidemic broke out in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia in West Africa. In August 2014, the WHO declared it a GHE. The official report on October 15 revealed 8,997 cases and 4,493 deaths [ 46 ]. The WHO announced the end of the epidemic in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia in November 2015, December 2015, and January 2016, respectively.

The 2015 MERS epidemic

In May 2015, the first MERS case was diagnosed in South Korea, with the disease spreading in medical institutions. Thirty-six patients died, and 186 were infected [ 47 ]. As the disease did not exhibit sustained human-to-human transmission, it was not classified as an international public health emergency. In December 2015, the WHO declared the end of the outbreak.

Comparison of the four GHEs with national trade recovery

Similarities.

The H1N1 flu occurred in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, further slowing the recovery of the affected countries. Owing to travel restrictions and trade embargoes, the tourism industry lost USD 2.8 billion, with the trade deficit in pork and pork products’ reaching USD 27 million. Mexico’s exports fell by 26% in the first quarter of 2009 [ 48 ]. The US economy was struggling and reached a nadir after the subprime crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 6763.29 on March 2, 2009, the lowest since April 1997 [ 49 ]. The H1N1 outbreak in April 2009 significantly decreased US GDP, retail sales, and exports of pork and pork products.

As the Japanese government could not provide on-time tests for all trade partners, Japan’s agricultural products and food exports to these countries stagnated. In the first quarter of 2011, Japan’s economy contracted at an annual rate of 3.7% [ 50 ]. In the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear leakage, the economy continued to shrink over the next 6 months (GDP fell 0.9% from January to March), and private consumption fell by 0.6%. In September 2012, the government announced that the country was entering a recession [ 50 ].

The Ebola epidemic affected transportation, tourism, agriculture, and mining. Trading countries and airlines issued travel restrictions to affected areas [ 46 ]. Agricultural production was affected, with the epidemic limiting the transport of agricultural products to consumer areas, raising product prices. Conakry’s governor banned Eid celebrations on October 2, 2014 [ 51 ]. Travel bans implemented by national authorities and airline flight suspensions [ 46 ] cut off trade among West African countries and their partners for about 6 months until August 31, 2014. The loss of workers and travel restrictions reduced mining activity. The US government sent USD 2.89 billion in foreign aid to West Africa, focusing its efforts on Liberia [ 51 ].

The MERS outbreak reduced the number of tourists visiting South Korea by 2.1 million, resulting in a loss of USD 2.6 billion in tourism revenue. Additionally, the accommodation, catering service, and transportation sectors suffered losses of USD 542 million, USD 359 million, and USD 106 million, respectively [ 52 ]. This pushed the transportation sector’s service index below the expected levels in June 2015 and the accommodation and catering industries’ service indexes below the expected levels in June and July 2015.

Heterogeneities

H1N1 flu was a pandemic caused by viral variants. The Fukushima event was a technological disaster triggered by a strong earthquake but mainly caused by industrialization [ 53 ]. The Ebola virus was a highly infectious and destructive disease; the widespread nature of the West African outbreak relates to the highly mobile communities and densely populated regions affected in the early stages [ 51 ]. South Korean cases of the MERS virus, which originated in Saudi Arabia, were introduced through international travel.

Duration and influence areas

The H1N1 flu lasted approximately 1 year, affecting Mexico and the US. Following the nuclear accident, some countries prohibited agri-food product imports from Japan’s irradiated areas from 2011 to the present (e.g., the US and China). Footnote 5 The Ebola epidemic lasted 2 years, primarily affecting African countries. More than 13,000 confirmed cases were reported globally, with 4,951 deaths and a 36% mortality rate by October 2014. Although the outbreak involved only three countries, there was widespread and intense transmission in the West African region, and four nations (Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, and the US) reported initial cases or localized transmission. The MERS epidemic was challenging for South Korea’s medical system for more than 7 months.

Event outcomes

After the H1N1 outbreak, countries restricted travel and banned the imports of pork products, which affected their trade with Mexico, the US, and the rest of the global economy. Unwarranted concerns based on inappropriate designations also led to official and unofficial bans by 17 countries on US pork and pork product imports, with China maintaining its ban until mid-December 2009 [ 54 ]. The Fukushima nuclear accident primarily affected Japan’s agricultural product exports because its trade partners were concerned about radioactive contamination [ 55 ], while the Ebola epidemic endangered Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia’s economic growth, leading to trade stagnation, foreign investment withdrawal, and a food crisis. MERS negatively affected South Korea’s tourism industry.

Evidence for these event outcomes is as follows.

Impact of GHEs on export volumes

In 2009, Mexico and US export volumes decreased by 21.13% and 17.97%, respectively, over the previous year (Fig.  2 ). Japan’s commodity export volume increased by 6.94% in 2011 over 2010, with a limited share of the Fukushima agricultural food export in Japan’s total foreign trade. Guinea’s commodity exports increased by 10% in 2014 over 2013 but decreased by 13.79% in 2015 over 2014, indicating the Ebola epidemic’s lagging effect on Guinea’s exports. In 2014, Liberia’s and Sierra Leone’s merchandise exports decreased by 54.7% and 19.04%, respectively, over 2013. South Korea’s merchandise exports decreased by 8.02% in 2015 over 2014.

Trends in international tourism revenue changes in GHEs-affected countries, 1995–2018 (current price, USD 10 billion). Data for Guinea and Liberia are missing from the World Bank Database. Source: Author’s analysis based on data from the World Bank Database

International tourism income changes in countries affected by GHEs

Mexican and US revenues decreased by 14.83% and 11.36%, respectively, in 2009 over 2008, and Japan’s revenues decreased by 18.38% in 2012 over 2011. In Sierra Leone, revenues decreased by 46.97% in 2014 over 2013, and in South Korea, by 16.43% in 2015 over 2014 (Fig.  3 ). Income from trade and transport fell because of the closure policy adopted during the Ebola outbreak, which also disrupted other business activities [ 56 ].

Theoretical framework for the design of trade recovery measures for GHE-affected countries. Source: Author’s analysis

Trade recovery

Developed countries (i.e., the US, Canada, and South Korea) have relatively robust health systems, sound economic foundations, and short trade recovery periods. The H1N1 epidemic lasted a year, after which exports from Mexico and the US returned to pre-pandemic levels. As an emerging economy, Mexico maintained its trade with the US during the outbreak; thus, trade recovered rapidly. In 2010, Mexico and US tourism revenues exceeded the level achieved in the 2009 pandemic year.

The impact of the Fukushima nuclear leakage on Japan’s export trade and tourism industry was limited, especially within Fukushima prefecture. Although Japan’s international tourism revenue declined in early 2011, the number of foreign tourists to Japan returned to 70% of that year by September 2012. By contrast, it took more than a decade to eliminate the consequences of the Fukushima disaster on the agricultural product trade. Agriculture production and trade resumed when decontamination was confirmed, which took a long time. In 2017, trade levels improved, and international tourism numbers recovered, exceeding pre-GHE levels [ 57 ].

Even before the Ebola outbreak, West African countries were impoverished and pursuing economic development. Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia recovered their export levels within 2 years of the outbreak, but the economic recovery time was long. Guinea’s export recovery was notable; its export trade increased in 2015 over 2014 before decreasing in 2016, although it remained above the pre-outbreak level. In 2015, Liberia’s export volume decreased by 20.57% and did not return to its pre-epidemic level until 2018. Sierra Leone’s exports declined slowly from 2015 until they increased in 2018; however, these are yet to achieve their pre-epidemic level. International tourism income increased by USD 2 million in 2015 over 2014 before fluctuating upward (Figs.  1 and 2 ).

Comparison of trade recovery measures in GHE-affected countries

The common points of the affected countries’ trade recovery measures include countries that chose active fiscal and monetary policies to achieve trade recovery. Consumers, enterprises, and significantly damaged industries were crucial areas for trade recovery.

Mexico and the US

In May 2009, Mexico implemented a tax rate reduction and funding aimed at small and midsize enterprises in the tourism and transportation industries. Furthermore, it reduced its interbank interest rate and announced a financing plan to inject funds into the economy through institutions (i.e., the National Financial Development Bank) to support small and medium enterprises. The Mexican government revived its economy by introducing rules/regulations to facilitate mergers and acquisitions that promoted the development of the southeast economy within Mexico.

During the H1N1 outbreak, the US economy faced a slowdown in an unstable policy environment following the 2008 financial crisis. The country passed a law to support economic recovery and encourage reinvestment. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to save financial institutions and enterprises on the brink of bankruptcy and help families with excessive debt. On July 12, 2009, the U.S. Department of Health announced the allocation of an additional USD 1 billion to fight A H1N1 influenza. Footnote 6 Despite reductions in US–Mexico air routes, trade between the two countries continued.

In March 2011, Japan launched a post-disaster recovery and reconstruction program, and the Reconstruction Agency was established in 2012. The timeframe included the Intensive Reconstruction Period (2011–2015), with USD 250 billion allocated, and the Reconstruction and Revitalization Period (2016–2020), with USD 65 billion. Japan also established a comprehensive environmental monitoring system. Footnote 7 To accelerate the resumption of normal business operations, the government supported the establishment of temporary stores, increased investment in support funds, and repaired damaged buildings.

Special financial support to reduce enterprises’ burden included establishing a Japanese financial company specialized in recovery and loans intended for reconstruction after the earthquake. The interest rate was slashed, and separate loan limits, extended loans, and repayment terms were established. The interest rate was reduced to almost zero for small and midsize enterprises whose office facilities were destroyed during the earthquake, and the government improved its management and financing. Tourism and other affected industries were supported, and entertainment and consumer destinations, such as Tokyo Disneyland, reopened to revitalize the local economy and restore international confidence after the disaster.

West Africa

Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone introduced short-term response policies to ensure the health systems and economic sectors’ timely recovery. The Guinean government formulated a USD 2-billion post-Ebola recovery plan, with 63% allocated to improving nutrition, health, education, and children’s services and promoting socioeconomic recovery [ 43 ]. It emphasized that the disease’s spread was enhanced by poverty and illiteracy, while noting that the epidemic presented an opportunity to strengthen the country’s economic, social, and institutional resilience. Sierra Leone prioritized the implementation of universal health insurance, whereas Liberia focused on improving post-outbreak areas such as health staffing, infrastructure, monitoring, and response.

The outbreak of a large-scale epidemic in Africa attracted attention from the international community. The United Nations, World Bank, IMF, and US launched a series of epidemic prevention and financial support policies to assist the West African countries in combatting the outbreak. These policies included initial funding of USD 200 million from the US National Institutes of Health to foster cooperation between academic institutions in the US, Liberia, and Sierra Leone on virus research, including vaccine development and new testing and treatment methods. The World Bank approved a USD 110 million IDA assistance to help West Africa establish and expand disease surveillance systems [ 43 ].

South Korea

In June 2015, the central bank of South Korea cut its interest rate to 1.5% [ 58 ], issued special financing support, and promoted structural reforms in public utilities, finance, education, and labor sectors. The Korean government provided special insurance for visitors to Korea, covering all medical and MERS-related expenses. The government concurrently introduced supportive policies to reduce consumption taxes on automobiles and large household appliances, offering discounts and organizing shopping festivals. Commercial enterprises offered discounts on commodities and services to stimulate domestic demand and launched the Black Friday Shopping Festival. To accommodate the peak summer vacation from late July to early August and absorb the demand for popular products flowing overseas during the epidemic, Korean enterprises actively supported tourism recovery and extended the discount season from winter until August to attract consumers.

The main measures of trade recovery

After the GHEs, the affected governments implemented internal countermeasures to recover. Korean commercial enterprises also participated in the recovery process through marketing measures. Conversely, although the three West African countries implemented internal trade recovery measures, given their economic development and medical infrastructure level, they required additional support from the international community to recover.

Emphasis on trade recovery

Most countries strengthened entry-exit control and ensured strict isolation to prevent an epidemic. International flights were reduced, with some countries isolated. Mexico and the US, however, maintained trade ties during the H1N1 influenza pandemic. After controlling the pandemic, the countries used fiscal and monetary policies to manage the affected tourism and agricultural trade. The Japanese government’s trade recovery was based on environmental monitoring measures. When the affected region’s government officials pushed for and promoted marketing measures, it mitigated the nuclear accident’s adverse psychological effects on foreign consumers, thereby advancing the recovery of agricultural exports. The three West African countries’ trade recovery measures are nested in a broader socioeconomic promotion plan. Countries with adequate trade recovery considered the epidemic would opportunistically promote domestic economic development and improve medical facilities with the international community’s support. South Korean commercial enterprises focused on stimulating local demand.

Trade recovery measures differ between developed and emerging economies

During the MERS outbreak, South Korea implemented an economic stimulus plan to assist domestic enterprises. Developed economies, such as the US and Japan, also developed support measures for small and midsize enterprises. During the Ebola epidemic, however, West African countries could not provide such resources, and international organizations, such as the World Bank, United Nations Children’s Fund, and WHO, came to their rescue (Table  2 ).

Comparing the cases with the theoretical framework

This study enhances the theoretical framework using case study evidence. Combining the theoretical framework in " Results " section , trade recovery measures in the time dimension of these countries require further clarification, especially when the event was under control and during the trade recovery stage. In the time dimension (Fig.  3 ), after the GHE was under control (especially after the warning and outbreak), the countries embarked on the process of trade recovery (including early, middle, and late stages).

Implementing the foundations of trade recovery can enhance governments’ timely responses to GHEs. Robust trade recovery infrastructures significantly improve response times during health crises [ 13 , 37 , 50 ]. Trade recovery measures differ based on cities, regions, and domestic countries, with urban centers often rebounding more rapidly owing to better resource allocation [ 59 , 60 ]. International cooperation is critical for trade recovery, especially for emerging countries, as exemplified by the joint efforts during the 2014 Ebola crisis that facilitated regional trade resumption [ 61 ]. The trade recovery measures of developed countries are more comprehensive than those of emerging countries, helping to shorten their recovery time, with the OECD highlighting the correlation between recovery measures and reduced economic downtime [ 62 ]. Countries can classify and enrich trade recovery measures by applying the time–space-subject three-dimensional framework analyzed earlier and establishing a countermeasure repository (see Table 3  in " Comparative case study on trade recovery measures after GHEs " section) to recover from GHEs

Each GHE revealed areas for improvement in trade recovery measures. The responses to the nuclear leakage accident and the H1N1 influenza epidemic suffered from a lack of timely action and resource allocation [ 53 , 59 ]. Management of the MERS and Ebola outbreaks has been criticized for insufficient coordination and resource deployment [ 34 ]. The outbreak of GHEs has exposed the weaknesses in global governance, manifesting in uncoordinated public health and economic systems, and the failure to manage these events to achieve a better balance among health, economic, and trade shocks. This lack of synergy exacerbates the severity of health, economic, and trade shocks during these crises. Establishing joint committees of the WHO, WTO, and potentially other international organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund and United Nations, could provide a comprehensive approach to managing these conflicts. The effectiveness of such collaborative efforts has been documented in the joint WHO–WTO response to the SARS and H1N1 outbreak, which enhanced global preparedness and response capabilities [ 63 ]. Such joint committees could create a real-time data repository for cross-border information sharing, outline a tiered protocol for trade actions, manage a dedicated emergency fund, and conduct bi-annual stress tests. This would not only inform member nations’ preparedness for future GHEs as recommended by the WHO, WIPO, and WTO but also renew their commitment to supporting integrated solutions for global health challenges [ 64 ].

Moreover, implementing trade recovery measures in countries affected by GHEs will generate short-term impacts on trade and investment with a delayed effect. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [ 65 ], recovery measures typically result in initial disruptions that are offset by longer-term gains in efficiency and market access. During GHEs, the successive implementation of trade recovery measures influences current economic activities; however, these measures have a delayed and long-term impact. UNCTAD [ 66 ] revealed that the full benefits of the trade recovery measures from the pandemic were not realized until several years post-crisis, underscoring the need for patient capital and sustained policy support. Improving the effects of trade recovery measures requires evaluating the implementation effects of the affected country’s measures in response to GHEs, as demonstrated by the World Bank’s analysis of response strategies during the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak. This provides crucial insights into the effectiveness of regional trade policies [ 61 ].

The following countermeasure repository clarifying the time–space-subject dimensions is chosen for countries experiencing GHEs (Table 3 ). Measures in the time dimension are differentiated in the short, medium, and long terms. Measures in the space dimension strengthen the choices of different geographic areas in the various affected levels (the degree to which an area has been affected by GHEs). The subject dimension highlights the heterogeneity of measures at the international, regional, national, industrial, and consumer levels. Countries experiencing a GHE can choose measures from this repository to address their specific needs.

Early stage of trade recovery

Countries should implement short-term policies with an open, transparent, and timely response. These policies should include the following.

Adopting short-term fiscal and monetary policies

Short-term policies were the primary measures employed by all four countries during the early stages of trade recovery. The availability of open and transparent information helps the government evaluate and control the situation. Timely isolation is significant in controlling an epidemic’s spread, thereby reducing infection and mortality rates. Short-term fiscal spending, income reduction, and credit policies (e.g., tax and reduction of property and insurance fees) can target the most impacted industries. The business cycle prefers a moderately loose monetary policy. Short-term policies should minimize the socioeconomic burden of people affected [ 67 ]. For emerging countries, countermeasures to reduce the economic burden are essential for mitigating the adverse effects rather than increasing employment and economic output [ 33 ].

Implementing trade policies to maintain open trade

During a GHE, neighboring countries and major trading partners fear the epidemic spread through trade channels, triggering trade bans and interruptions. Flight controls and border closures affect countries beyond those implementing the measures [ 46 ]. During the Ebola outbreak, West African countries closed their borders, disrupting regional trade and threatening the essential supply and livelihood of the host countries [ 30 , 31 ]. The affected countries and trading partners should keep trade as open as possible to secure an adequate supply of necessities. During the early stages of trade recovery, reducing trade costs (government-imposed trade costs such as tariffs and quotas) can help protect trade and economic openness. At the international, national, and industrial levels, timely trade policies should be implemented to avoid trade bans and actively respond to technical barriers to trade (TBTs) imposed by other countries. At the national level, affected countries must promptly reduce their short-term trade barriers. Footnote 8 The increased trade barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic further destroyed trade (i.e., the global food system) [ 68 ].

Middle and later stages of trade recovery

Rapid control of spreading diseases or radioactive substances poses challenges and leads to long-term lag effect on national trade recovery. While quantifying total trade losses from epidemics and nuclear radiation remains difficult, prioritizing national trade recovery is essential for normalizing trade. Measures taken during GHEs should be adjusted based on the overall trade recovery progress to prevent trade friction and expedite the normalization of trade and economic policies. The policy package aimed at ensuring timely trade normalization should incorporate the following three elements.

Highlighting macroeconomy-tolerant fiscal and monetary policies

The GHEs significantly disrupted total consumer spending during the middle and later periods of trade recovery. Policy interventions to maintain economic growth are therefore preferable. During GHEs, governments must coordinate their efforts to manage working time arrangements and determine the optimal level of public debt based on production technology and disease characteristics to effectively implement fiscal policy [ 69 ]. Simultaneously, medium- and long-term structural policies must be launched while establishing epidemic risk assessment tools. Measures include improving monitoring systems and raising public awareness of prevention and control measures. Pharmaceutical companies should be incentivized to develop new antiviral drugs and vaccines and enhance their production capacity. Footnote 9 Measures to increase medical reserves, such as adopting advanced technologies and medical infrastructure, should be pursued.

Supporting key industries and enterprises at medium and micro levels

Efforts include implementing targeted policies for industries significantly affected by the GHE to protect the interests of small and midsize enterprises, particularly those engaged in import and export businesses directly affected. Measures should target preferential policies and subsidies for small and midsize enterprises and prevent unemployment. Enterprises should continue to pay wages and facilitate employee benefit claims despite economic uncertainty. Global manufacturers and retailers can improve e-commerce for shopping channels, develop trust and confidence among e-commerce participants, and promote compatibility with international norms [ 70 ].

Attracting investment

GHEs can reduce or cause a withdrawal of foreign direct investment from affected countries. When the health event is controlled, implementing tax relief can help reduce losses promptly and promote major investing countries’ and trading partners’ investment plans. For example, foreign investment was withdrawn or withheld during West Africa’s Ebola outbreak. Even after the epidemic was under control, the withdrawn foreign capital slowed the economic recovery of the most affected countries. Weak investment was the primary restraint on trade recovery, accounting for approximately 80% of the decline in goods trade between 2012 and 2016 and between 2003 and 2007 [ 71 ]. Countries should actively maintain a stable financial system and encourage foreign direct investment inflows during the middle and later recovery periods.

Conclusions

This study investigated the impact of GHEs and designed countermeasures to address trade recovery based on theoretical and case analysis. The following conclusions are drawn. First, the unexpected and unique nature of GHEs complicates trade recovery. There were differences in the types of GHEs, their transmission times, and diffusion regions across the four health events. Regardless of the home country’s coping strategy or the experience gained from these events, the trade recovery capability of these countries warrants improvement. Second, the trade recovery measures for the four GHEs were heterogeneous in their focus and effectiveness among developed and emerging economies. Fiscal and monetary policies were more commonly used, followed by recovery measures for specific regions and industries. Enterprises must actively stimulate demand (i.e., marketing, e-commerce). Third, trade recovery measures should be implemented from a spatiotemporal perspective, considering specific subject levels. Short-term policies were the primary focus for affected countries during the early stages of trade recovery. Medium- and long-term policies were crucial for ensuring open trade and trade normalization in the middle and late stages.

The results indicate that trade recovery measures should operate in the space–time-subject dimension. Expedient short-term policies should be adopted during the early stages of recovery (i.e., tax relief and trade subsidies) to stabilize the affected economies rapidly. As recovery progresses, medium- and long-term financial, monetary, and trade policies (i.e., bilateral trade agreements and currency stabilization) should be preferred in the middle and later stages to sustain and bolster economic recovery. Designing trade recovery policies at the international, national, industrial, enterprise, and consumer levels should shift from emergency actions to comprehensive, reserve-oriented, and enduring-effects measures. These policies should address needs at different levels, such as permanent trade corridors to facilitate uninterrupted trade flows and consumer loyalty programs in sustaining market demands.

Our study acknowledges the comprehensive WTO trade measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, which documented diverse practices of trade facilitation and restriction across member states. According to the WTO’s report [ 72 ] and further detailed trade policy discussions [ 73 ], these measures significantly influenced the economic landscape globally, highlighting the need for adaptable tailor-made trade policies to specific country contexts. Building on these findings, we suggest that future trade recovery strategies should leverage both the resilience measures and lessons learned during the pandemic. Specifically, effective temporary trade measures identified by the WTO can serve as models for swift deployment in future global health emergencies, aiming to minimize disruptions to trade flows.

Limitations and future research

This study proposed that trade recovery countermeasures designed for countries with GHEs should distinguish between spatiotemporal dimensions and specific subject levels. Different trade recovery countermeasures inevitably produce overlapping effects (i.e., fiscal and easy monetary policies can promote trade recovery). However, this study did not fully explore the interactive or cumulative impacts of these overlapping countermeasures, leaving room for determining the most effective policy combinations. Further research is needed on the superimposed effects of trade promotion and combined policies. For example, clarifying these mechanisms requires analyzing the channels and results of various trade recovery countermeasures affecting trade recovery, collecting quarterly, monthly, even daily, and real-time data from countries with GHEs, and applying difference-in-difference, breakpoint regression models, as well as propensity score matching to identify the mechanism and countermeasures’ effects. This approach can provide insight into the overlapping effects of multiple trade recovery policies.

Availability of data and materials

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

GHEs affect the long-run evolution of the economy. This study assumes that countries experiencing GHEs will enter a new stage of development and show a long-run economic evolution.

The economy evolves endogenously. A GHE always affects/changes the economy, altering its evolutionary path. Therefore, countries affected by GHEs try to resume or recover trade by implementing trade recovery measures.

This causation runs both ways.

This research focuses on the impact of GHEs on trade; however, since forever, the relationship has run both ways.

The US Food and Drug Administration response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility incident (May 14, 2023). https://www.fda.gov/news-events/public-health-focus/fda-response-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-power-facility-incident Scholars also focus on the motivations/interests of the US agricultural community before and after the event—for example, the nuclear event was just an excuse to prohibit imports. This is also an interesting future topic.

US $1 billion to fight against influenza A (H1N1), China News Report , October 10, 2022. https://news.ifeng.com/c/7fYidCErT3J

Efforts toward reconstruction of Tohoku, Reconstruction Agency of Japan, May 14, 2023. https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/english/index.html

Facing COVID-19, the affected countries did the opposite. These activities clearly exposed the weakness of the current recovery measures taken by the countries. Enhancing trade barriers are emergency-oriented measures taken by countries facing multiple uncertainties, while reducing trade barriers are reserve-oriented and enduring-effect measures that benefit countries affected by GHEs.

Incentivizing pharmaceutical companies is challenging while recognizing their right to make a profit and the public’s opposing rights and interests. Governments need to play a role in avoiding their monopoly on meeting private interests while encouraging their progress, innovation, and social responsibility.

Abbreviations

• Global health events

Middle East respiratory syndrome

World Health Organization

World Trade Organization

United States

Artificial intelligence

Technical barriers to trade

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Post-funded project of the National Social Science Fund of China, “Research on academic frontier theory and policy of the economics of standards” [Grant No. 21FJLB039]; Soft Science Special Project of Gansu Basic Research Plan, “Research on promoting trade development between Gansu and countries along the Silk Road through harmonization of standards” [Grant No. 23JRZA385]; The China Association of Trade in Services project, “Research on the Impact of Digital Trade on Manufacturing Production Efficiency”[Grant No. FWMYKT-202429].

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Elearning during the covid-19 pandemic in tanzanian universities: policy challenges and implications, francis kyambo william, ephrem abdon, joyce mbepera.

This article assesses the experiences of universities in engaging students in teaching and learning during crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, with a case study of the University of Dodoma. Data were collected from 181 academic staff and 250 students through online questionnaires and interview. In addition, the 2018 UDOM ICT policy and 2021/2022-2025/2026 Strategic plan was reviewed to obtain data. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the quantitative data, and thematic analysis was used for qualitative data. The study found that the University of Dodoma had well-articulated statements that emphasize the implementation of eLearning in its ICT policy and strategic plan. However, ICT facilities such as internet services, computers, and computer laboratories were found to be inadequate for the university to use eLearning as an alternative model for teaching and learning during the pandemic. Staff and students had a limited knowledge of eLearning. The improvement of eLearning infrastructure and capacity strengthening among academic staff and students at the University of Dodoma is recommended to enhance teaching and learning during crisis periods and beyond.

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How virtual work is accelerating innovation

Despite the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic—and partly because of it—innovation and digitization have been happening at a record-breaking pace. A McKinsey survey of top executives around the world found that companies accelerated their digitization  of customer, supply chain, and internal operations by an average of three years.

Indeed, over the past two years, countries around the world have set records for new business formation, new patents issued, venture capital invested, and more. The US Census Bureau’s seasonally adjusted business formation statistics data show that through 2021, a record 5.38 million applications had been filed to form new businesses—an increase of more than 50 percent over prepandemic 2019. 1 “Business Formation Statistics, April 2022,” US Census Bureau, May 11, 2022. The brisk pace meant there were roughly 409,000 more US filings in 2021 than at the same point in prepandemic 2019. The World Intellectual Property Indicators also showed that aggregate global filing activity across 150 authorities grew in 2020, even amid the global health crisis. 2 World Intellectual Property Indicators 2021 , WIPO, 2021. Venture capital flows have also boomed: in 2021, global venture capital more than doubled from 2020, rising 111 percent. 3 Jordan Major, “Global VC funding hit a record $621 billion in 2021, a 111% increase YoY,” Finbold.com (Finance in Bold), January 13, 2022.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Federico Berruti , Gisele Ho, Phil Kirschner , Alex Morris, Sophie Norman, and Erik Roth , representing views from McKinsey’s Operations, Digital, Growth & Innovation, and Real Estate practices.

What’s striking about these dramatic advances is that they largely entailed people collaborating remotely, leveraging technology in different ways, and being bolder with innovation, automation, and digitization than ever before. For decades, physical proximity has been considered essential to successful innovation. In an influential 1977 book, management professor Thomas Allen described a strong negative correlation between physical distance and frequency of communication, finding that people are four times as likely to regularly talk with someone six feet away from them as with someone 60 feet away, and people almost never communicate with colleagues on separate floors or in separate buildings. 4 Thomas J. Allen, Managing the Flow of Technology , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977.

This proximity mantra guided everything from office layouts to urban planning. Cities such as Boston (with many counterparts around the world) have tried to fuel innovation by establishing districts where academia, research organizations, start-ups, and investors work side by side in purpose-designed “innovation ecosystems.” 5 Carmelina Bevilacqua et al., Place-based innovation ecosystems: Boston-Cambridge innovation districts (USA) , Joint Research Centre, 2019. Locating problem solvers together to encourage creative collisions of ideas, experimentation, and informal collaboration is also core to one of McKinsey’s original eight essentials of innovation .

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While the pandemic-related measures have thwarted the engineered serendipity designed into physical work spaces, making watercooler conversations and impromptu problem-solving interactions difficult to replicate virtually, it has led to a broad embrace of videoconferencing and virtual collaboration tools. Organizational network and collaboration analytics have also enabled innovative companies to help employees build and sustain the ties necessary to generate new ideas. As a result, organizations have, in the words of author Steven Johnson, “widened the pool of minds that could come up with and share good ideas” 6 Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation , New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2010. —a vital ingredient for innovation. By connecting people into broader virtual networks, the pandemic has increased the collective speed and creativity of innovation efforts.

It’s likely that flexible work and workplaces are here to stay, especially for organizations seeking to maintain or accelerate this elevated pace of innovation. More than half of corporate and government employees say they would like to work from home  at least three days per week, and the number is even higher for innovation talent, such as programmers. 7 “For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm,” Economist , August 11, 2021. Location flexibility has become a de facto expectation for the latter group. Rather than seeing this as an obstacle, organizations seeking to innovate are doubling down on the benefits that new approaches to innovation present.

Diversity and inclusion

Innovators recognize that increased diversity and greater inclusion, both within teams and at the leadership level, produce more and better innovation results. A recent McKinsey study  found that more ethnically and racially diverse companies outperform their less-diverse peers by 36 percent when it comes to financial targets. As a result, innovators  are tapping virtual work to attract more specialized and diverse talent and are building more inclusive workforces. One recently launched start-up that rapidly achieved unicorn status shifted to a virtual-first model, recognizing that the specific innovation talent its business required wasn’t available in any single major city.

Productivity

Innovators have also recognized that virtual teams, especially when managed effectively, can avoid unnecessary distractions, experience more effective and uninterrupted workflow, and achieve productivity gains. In a 2021 study, 83 percent of employees working remotely agreed that their homes enabled them to work productively—a higher proportion than the average office (64 percent) and even outstanding workplaces (78 percent). 8 “Workplace 2021: Appraising future-readiness,” Leesman, 2021. One innovative technology company recently started “time zone stacking,” the practice of strategically structuring virtual teams to positively leverage time differences and further accelerate innovation efforts.

How CEOs can win the new service game

Customer-centricity.

Perhaps paradoxically, an adjustment made because of the COVID-19 pandemic has enabled many organizations to get physically closer to their customers, as hiring is no longer tethered to geographic location. One global payment platform, for example, launched a remote engineering hub during the pandemic, hiring engineers from a range of locations and cultures. One year into the initiative, the company reports feeling “closer to customers—because we literally are.” Similarly, a government agency now describes being more citizen-centric thanks to hiring employees who live and work across the country, not just in the capital city.

Proximity to the customer, instead of to a physical office, can help organizations’ innovation talent avoid the corporate echo chamber and identify and test new ideas faster. Getting closer to target communities is also easier than ever thanks to the proliferation of coworking sites and other “third places” to work and connect.

Proximity to the customer, instead of to a physical office, can help organizations’ innovation talent avoid the corporate echo chamber and identify and test new ideas faster.

The pandemic has made clear that lack of physical proximity need not hold back innovation—in fact, it can fuel it—but this is not a new phenomenon. Although it may come as a surprise to some, boldly innovating through remote collaboration has been a fixture in the scientific community for decades. In the 1980s, researchers adopted a way of working called the “collaboratory,” a virtual space where scientists interact with colleagues, share data and instruments, and collaborate without regard to physical location. Breakthroughs achieved through virtual collaboration include the Human Genome Project and the ATLAS project at CERN, which involved 1,800 particle physicists across 34 countries.

More recently, innovators outside the science sphere have embraced the approach. Cryptocurrencies and metaverse platforms were largely developed through decentralized collaboration involving people around the globe. Pandemic-related changes simply expanded on the model rapidly, notably in the record-breaking development of the COVID-19 vaccines and a slew of new company and product launches over the past 24 months.

If the age of assuming that innovation requires physical proximity is behind us, with innovative companies’ full embrace of virtual teams and the role of technology, what comes next? One executive who leads a 50-person innovation group as part of a 15,000-employee organization said, “The pandemic made us realize that we never needed a swanky and costly innovation studio to do our work. What we want is community.” His plans are to make virtual work permanent, with monthly or quarterly in-person gatherings to strengthen trust, friendship, and connection.

How many more innovators will adopt this approach? Will bringing together the best of remote practices and the best of in-person experiences accelerate innovation even further? Let’s start experimenting to find out.

Federico Berruti and Alex Morris are both partners in McKinsey’s Toronto office, where Gisele Ho is a senior manager; Phil Kirschner is a senior expert in the New York office, where Sophie Norman is a senior manager; and Erik Roth is a senior partner in the Stamford, Connecticut, office.

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