As coronavirus takes its toll on economies and businesses across the globe, Retail Week brings you regular dispatches from international retailers and experts who provide insights into how they are coping with the pandemic.

In this edition, Majid Al Futtaim’s retail boss Hani Weiss reveals how the Dubai conglomerate’s retail division is adapting in the face of seismic change across the United Arab Emirates.

This article first appeared in issue three of the World Retail Congress report The Retail World 2020: Retailing in a time of crisis.

“The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability” – the words of Charles Darwin are being tested as companies around the world face a fight for survival amid tremendous economic hardship.

The most comprehensive crisis plans are simply not enough to fully prepare companies for a pandemic of this scale. Covid-19 has demanded that we all completely rethink our approach to crisis planning, in real-time and without warning, or face the consequence of being put out of business.

Majid Al Futtaim has learnt that while strength and intelligence are undoubtedly beneficial in these hard times, adaptability really is central to weathering this storm. The results of our ongoing resilience initiatives are now becoming apparent and with confidence we can isolate our ability to adapt to change, often in record time, as being a fundamental factor in our effective organisation-wide response.

Plan for the unexpected

A crisis strategy should be flexible enough to accommodate unforeseen circumstances and outcomes, but no business expected a challenge of this magnitude. Therefore, the entire crisis preparedness paradigm has changed and will never return to pre-Covid-19 standards.

We believe that developing an adaptable multi-stakeholder approach to a crisis is essential for building lasting resilience. However, as data from the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Perception Survey reveals, people often identify readily perceptible risks as the most threatening.

This means that many companies will likely neglect the crisis planning necessary for those risks not directly ahead. The result of this oversight will inevitably lead to lower levels of adaptability, less agility and more business closures.

Going forward, the only way to survive is to expect the unexpected and assume it will be worse than you imagine when drafting your crisis plan.

Changing circumstances

One of the first indicators of change were customers relying primarily on online shopping to purchase their groceries and household essentials. We saw a 300% uplift in our Carrefour online transactions year on year.

To address this changing circumstance in purchasing behaviour brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, Majid Al Futtaim took the initiative to activate an employee redeployment programme across the region.

The programme saw more than 1,100 leisure, entertainment and cinema employees, who work for Majid Al Futtaim brands that temporarily closed during the crisis, reskilled to join the company’s Carrefour business temporarily, to assist with online order fulfilment, food packing, stock replenishment and more.

This ongoing initiative required a quick response coupled with organisation-wide adaptability to coordinate and facilitate the large-scale effort. We also opened several new fulfilment centres across the region, as well as our largest ‘dark store’ in the UAE, to ensure customers have access to the goods they need.

Partnering for adaptability

For some time now, we have worked closely with the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment to support local farming by stocking their produce and promoting innovative agricultural techniques. Thus, we were able to partner with them quickly to boost the availability of locally grown produce across Carrefour stores in the UAE.

The programme will open new distribution channels for more than 6,000 small and medium-sized local farmers who have found their traditional routes to market disrupted while ensuring a sustainable supply of fresh fruit and vegetables across the country after seeing a 60% increase in consumption versus the same period last year.

Majid Al Futtaim has also officially launched an online marketplace through Carrefouruae.com that provides the company’s shopping mall tenants and other businesses across the UAE with a new ecommerce channel to reach their customers – allowing local companies to engage with a larger customer base without spending the capital normally needed to build their own ecommerce infrastructure.

The post-Covid-19 world

There is much to accomplish before life returns to a new normal amid Covid-19. Opportunities to demonstrate adaptability remain present and will serve to strengthen the resilience of those businesses willing to be bold and implement new ideas.

While I believe we will emerge from this pandemic with a wealth of valuable insights and perspectives on how to operate more effectively and efficiently in the retail sector, the world post-Covid-19 will be irreversibly different.

The retail industry will, to a degree, have a first-mover advantage in terms of navigating the new customer’s online preferences, improving supply chains, building capacity and adapting to innovations more quickly.

Ultimately, we will always have a resistance to change, but there will always be a need to adapt to survive. As leaders, the quicker we understand that fact, the easier it will be to lead successful teams and organisations.

The imperative remains to seek out new opportunities from the ongoing crisis, combining action with adaptability, as we seek to emerge from this pandemic ready to thrive once again.

The Retail World 2020: Retailing in a time of crisis

WRC issue three front cover

Retailers across the globe are facing their greatest ever challenge as the pandemic grips every country. How are retailers coping and responding to the needs of their customers, communities and the business itself?

Hear from retailers and experts from around the world in the fortnightly report from World Retail Congress. The third issue is available to download in full here.