5 Things Learned From COVID-19

If you stop and think of the companies that are not only surviving but thriving through COVID-19 I believe they have learned five lessons over these past six months. It's in these worst of times that things get fixed.

C - Collaboration. When was the last time you heard about teams from across the globe come together in a matter of days to design and develop new products to meet the new and changing demands of their customers? Mark Hans Richer of Fortune Brands Moen division describes how his team worked day in night for a week to develop a voice activated faucet that would turn on with a request, pause for 15 seconds, and then restart to rinse all by the sound of your voice. Tell me your kids would now start washing their hands and not have to sing happy birthday.

Best Buy, Dick's Sporting Goods and Michaels rapidly developed solutions for pickup stations outside their stores in just a matter of weeks. And the earnings results are proving to be spectacular with Best Buy reporting bullish sales in their second quarter with a year over year increase of 2.5%. Kohl's figured out a way to have their call center team work from home in just a few days. Failure is not an option if survival is on the line.

O - Optimism. There are leaders of companies that can see opportunities even in the darkest of times. The regional restaurant White Castle had a loyalty program planned to launch in 2021, but decided to fast track Craver Nation and launch in the midst of the epidemic. They quickly realized that their customers wanted an easier way to engage with their restaurant and having a loyalty program connected to an online ordering mobile app would be the best answer. Chipotle has reported they have almost tripled their sales by having the foresight to invest in technologies that provided for curbside pickup.

V - Vision. Janey Whiteside, CMO of Walmart, described on a recent CMO Moves podcast that her team has invested over $5BB in new technologies over the past five months! Walmart has a vision of how they need to exceed the needs of their customers today. We've seen how quickly they pivoted to enable curbside pickup of groceries and prescriptions.

Orange Theory, Planet Fitness, and 24-Hour Fitness have all started live streaming fitness classes to their members while their gyms were closed. This takes guts to make a tectonic change of this magnitude.

It's truly amazing how massive organizations can come together and focus on a vision that makes their brands even stronger when they are being tested from all directions. Joe Hartsig's team at Bed, Bath & Beyond are closing some store locations to convert them to fulfillment centers. The late GE leader Jack Welch was known to say, "When the rate of change on the inside is slower than the rate of change on the outside the end is near." Let's hope that with these changes at Bed, Bath & Beyond their curtain call will now be a bit further out of sight.

I - Ingenuity. While the technology is not exactly new Fit:Match is partnering with malls across the US to provide their retailers with 3D body scanning and a virtual fitting room technology. Brands like Under Armour are embracing this to help their customers get in and out of their stores quickly and efficiently. Another example is with hotels nearly empty and almost the entire workforce working from home Red Roof Inn created a work from home rate for remote workers. For $29 a day you can get fast internet service a quite room and change of scenery from the dog barking and kids running around the house. Hotels all across Las Vegas recently announced a similar approach in an attempt to drive business.

D - Determination. Companies that have their workers staying home for child care are now opening up day care centers in their offices in order to help bring them back and remove their stress. Michelle Gass, CEO of Kohl's, talks about their three pillars - people, customers and community - as she describes the transitions they've undergone to keep their unique work culture alive and healthy. She is determined to lead Kohl's to where their customers are going and in some cases get there even faster. She recently told Matt Gray from the NRF, "Now is not the time to play defense no matter what industry you represent. The name of the game is offense."

And finally, there comes a time in life when we finally realize that we don't see things as they are, but see them as we are. Dr. Peter Diamandis constantly reminds his team that just because it's never been done does not mean it can't be done. When we look at COVID-19 keep in mind that when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change. Anything is possible.