We are Stronger than we know: Lessons from the Pandemic.

We are living through a time which will define our generation.

The pandemic has forced each of us to make serious changes in our personal and professional lives. From the front-line worker, confronting the relentless fear of exposure, to the hundreds of thousands of people who no longer have jobs to go to, we have all faced different challenges. No two experiences have been the same. Fractures and inequities within societies and between countries have been exposed. The effects have varied, but all affect the most vulnerable disproportionately. Developing countries, minorities, women, and young people have suffered most and will struggle the most to recover.

Nestlé Zone Americas stretches from Canada to Latin America. It includes the USA, Latin America and the Caribbean. The diversity of countries and communities in which we operate gives us a unique perspective on the disparate effects of the pandemic and, perhaps, a different outlook on what it will take for the world to recover.

Various scenarios continue to play out across the Zone. While we can speculate, the truth is that many repercussions of the pandemic have yet to reveal themselves. It will fall to future generations to deal with the long-term consequences of this extraordinary event, for example, to repay the immense debt resulting from emergency measures to protect lives.

This is not to say that leadership can be postponed: Leaders today must act expeditiously to begin healing new divides between nations, communities, age and income groups which pose a great risk for recovery and for the sustainability of our communities. Some issues require immediate resolution — the unfolding vaccine inequity for example, cannot be allowed to continue. We need to change the dynamic that is developing, and we need to do it quickly.

The world changed, almost overnight, and businesses had to race to adjust. In Nestlé Zone Americas, with 114 factories and 77'200 employees, our leadership capabilities were truly put to the test. Nestlé is the world’s largest food & beverage company, we are all committed to what we do, but in 2020 our role took on a new dimension. It became crystal clear how truly essential the food industry is to human life — suddenly Nestlé had an obligation to ensure that millions of people had the sustenance they needed, where and when they needed it.

Technology plays a decisive role, but not everything is virtual. Factory, distribution, and retail teams had to be on the frontline each day, so food and beverages were available on grocery store shelves. I am tremendously proud of our teams and the work they are doing to help feed neighbours, friends, colleagues, and countries!

Interesting business dilemmas developed. We had to simultaneously manage very different challenges as consumer behaviour changed dramatically. How, for example, were Nestlé’s businesses affected by the fact that consumers were staying at home? The impact was twofold and diametrically opposed.

On the one hand, there was a surge in at-home consumption. People began cooking (and baking!) more. Many consumers wanted quick and easy food solutions. Demand for trusted brands like Maggi, Nestlé’s sweetened, condensed and evaporated milks, DiGiorno and Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine, and our Toll House chocolate chips, soared. People adopted pets — our Pet Care brands exploded.

The result was an immense strain on supply. We had to rethink and innovate our entire supply chain, leveraging relationships with suppliers and retailers and implementing a variety of measures from increased raw material cover, to rebalanced shipping networks to meet demand.

On the other hand, stay-at-home had the opposite effect for other brands. The cruise ship business simply disappeared. To combat reduced demand, we focused on off-premise channels; we pushed e-commerce and reinvented our ways to do business out-of-home.

There were many other learnings for business leaders. For me, the most important lesson was the importance of communication. Our teams are spread across the Americas and the Caribbean, and, with travel impossible, we had to reinvent how we engaged. Again, the challenge was twofold: We needed to stay very closely connected, but at same time we had to avoid overcommunicating and overwhelming our teams.

So we narrowed our communication priorities, choosing three critical issues as the foundation on which to mobilise the organisation. These were, and remain: The safety of our people, business continuity, and support for our communities. Three communications priorities, reflecting Nestlé’s three business priorities. It is a formula that has worked to keep our entire organisation engaged, focused, and moving forward. It is what we will continue to do.

I say continue because this is far from over. There is no “New Normal.” As 2021 unfolds, recovery will not be consistent across nations or communities. We are transitioning to a new way of doing business, and it will be a while before we see all the changes to the social and business landscape, which will be permanent, and which will revert to previous norms.

What is the most important thing I have discovered? It is that we are stronger than we know. I have witnessed the tremendous response at every level of our organization, across countries and communities. I have seen challenges met with creativity, compassion, and commitment. This resilience has been unforgettable. It will prove more important than ever as we move into an uncertain and volatile future.