A Visit from St. Nicholas – A Very 2020 Christmas, in 3 parts (3)

T’was the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.” The famous opening lines from the 19th Century poem by Clement Clarke Moore.

How different will be this year’s visit from St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus as we know him today. Part 3 of a 3-part tale.

Part 1: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/visit-from-st-nicholas-very-2020-christmas-3-parts-1-alan-duncan

Part 2: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/visit-from-st-nicholas-very-2020-christmas-3-parts-2-alan-duncan

What of the new complexities of delivering those millions of parcels during a pandemic? Fewer families will be allowed to get together so there will be more delivery points; differing COVID-19 related regulations and restrictions in place from country to country to consider; the need for Santa, the elves and the reindeer to socially distance (and social bubbles are already in place); the “Rule of 6” in place in many countries means that the sleigh cannot be pulled by the usual 8 reindeer so sleigh-power is reduced. This will place a greater need on efficiency: Santa must do more with less. Luckily for the children, Mrs Claus is on the case and has bought him his own Christmas present (please do not tell him it’s an AI powered logistics control tower!) to ensure he has complete visibility of his delivery network and can mitigate issues before they happen.

Network and route optimisation software will be used for the very first time and, after running various scenarios, Mrs Claus is confident that Santa will deliver all the gifts on time and in full. With the reduced sleigh pulling power and more delivery drops, Santa has to change his approach.  Insider elves have leaked that Santa has trained one of the senior elves to drive a second sleigh to a secret location on or around the Greenwich Meridien where Santa will swap sleighs with the slickness of a Formula 1 team, mid-journey around midnight GMT. The decision about which reindeers are to be used on each leg of the journey remains a closely guarded secret although leg 1 is expected to use only 4 reindeer and, given the more dense population of the Western hemisphere, Rudolf is expected to be drafted in to boost the leg 2 team up to 5.

Those who track Santa’s progress through the NORAD or Google control towers will not see any interruption: the sleighs are said to be fitted with identical GPS tracking devices to ensure full visibility throughout the journey.

And what next for St. Nicholas? With the first sights of a vaccine for COVID-19, he is hopeful that this year’s challenges will be short lived. However, there’s no rest for the world’s greatest logistics team. St. Nicholas and his team of management elves are already looking to 2021, weighing up the implications of Brexit, the change in US President and other issues. What will be the impact on global tariffs? Will more suppliers move to production nearer to Lapland? How will Brexit impact the free movement of elf labour from UK to his workshops in Lapland (inside the EU)? How can Santa Claus, the reindeers and elves drive toward carbon neutrality and a circular supply chain? And what will be next year’s favourite toy?

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!” [Clement Clarke Moore]