Special Issue on the Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Companies and Consumers 2020-21

Since its appearance, COVID-19 has severely impacted the healthcare sector all over the world. The healthcare organizations should be agile in order to cope with this new health crisis. Indeed, organization agility was highly recommended as an essential basis for flexibility, innovation, speed, as well competitiveness. Different research provided different conceptual models suitable to evaluate the organization agility. In this sense, this paper presents an assessment model, which by defining different agile enablers, criteria and attributes, aims at identifying the least and the most suitable enablers influencing the healthcare organization agility. To realize it practically, this paper uses the fuzzy logic approach which provides the improvement directions for enhancing the organization agility. Subsequently, the data gathered from a Moroccan healthcare organization was substituted in this assessment model and the level and the suggestions improvement for agility were derived. In this way, the organization will integrate the successful combination of the agility enablers in this dynamic environment.

This paper documents, information about the current outbreak of Corona virus and its multidimensional effects witnessed worldwide. The objective of the study is to disseminate information to policymakers, government and the general public, to facilitate the efforts for fighting against the contagious virus and aims to contribute to the economic and social welfare. Though the data changes rapidly by every passing minute, yet the current scenario may be analyzed to evaluate the present situation for a fruitful outcome. Hence, the discussion may be useful for all the stakeholders (government, policymakers and the public) for their reference. Various studies previously observed that widespread contagious diseases have a severe impact on the economy. It is observed that the faster and wider the outbreak of disease, the higher and severer the influence on the economies. The economies face shrinkage of income, revenue, earnings, while health expenditure increases for hospitals, medical kits, ventilators, uniforms, masks, gloves, medicines and other medical equipment. Therefore, it has a two-pronged adversely hitting effect on economies to manage the imbalance in the budget and fiscal matters. Another unfortunate situation is when the high populated country is poor too. The world has realized the effects of the different contagious viruses in the different times in history. Nevertheless, the virulence and the severity of the COVID-19 is far greater than the previous viral breakouts. We, in this research attempt to highlight the multidimensional effects of COVID-19 and create some possibilities how to deal and fight with this cruel and invisible enemy.

The crisis linked to the COVID-19 and the uncertainty it generates in the unprecedented health, societal, economic and financial fields have had a strong impact on the stock markets. Indeed, in such a climate of very high uncertainty, it is to be expected that the excessive stock market price movements will continue, with both declines and technical rebounds, and that the resulting volatility will remain particularly high. In order to cope with this crisis, investors and portfolio managers must mobilize all portfolio selection strategies. In particular, portfolio management and construction are based on the concepts of return and risk. This couple has been at the center of all the concerns of managers and investors in portfolio optimization issues since the introduction of the mean-variance model by Markowitz [1], [2]. However, many studies have proposed different measures of risk to overcome the drawbacks of variance. The objective of this paper is to present and compare the portfolio compositions and performance of four different portfolio optimization models using different risk measures, including variance, Mean Absolute Deviation, Gini coefficient and Lower Partial Moments (LPM). The results of this study show that the Mean-Lower Partial Moments (MLPM) model outperforms other models. The Mean-Lower Partial Moments (MLPM) model is suitable for investors during the crisis period (COVID-19) in the Moroccan financial market.

The Covid-19 is a pandemic issue that is causing widespread global disruption forcing lockdowns in many countries including Malaysia as an effort in disconnecting the virus from spreading. As an initiative, the Malaysia government has call for the Movement Control Order (MCO) as one of the lockdown alternatives starting on 18th March 2020. Due to that, the MCO has given a huge impact on Malaysia’s industries including the construction industry. Hence, to successfully deliver projects, time and cost become the essential component which in this current scenario, most of the on-going projects declined to deliver the project according to the time and cost as planned. Thus, this paper intends to explore the consequences of the Movement Control Order (MCO) towards project success. In getting an authentic data and fast feedback from the respondents during this current scenario, uses alternate methods as face to face interview is not encouraged. The interview sessions were held thru telephone conversation with 8 contractors in Klang Valley and Penang which randomly selected based on contractor listing in Malaysian Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) website and content analysis are used to figure out the main consequences using Nvivo software. Results from the interviews found that the MCO has resulted in 6 main impacts consists of (1) regulation compliance; (2) safety; (3) additional time for project delivery; (4) increase in development cost; (5) limited human resources supplies; and (6) limited resource availability on-site. These shows the MCO has given the negative impact to the project success. This result is important for the government to ensure their awareness on the consequences of the MCO towards construction industry and facilitate the construction players to overcome the six factors mentioned in this paper.

There have been disruptions in local and global food supply chains around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has led to rethink various aspects and to consider various trends in the food sector, encourage a more rapid transition and evolution to the Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM), to counteract current problems and to help towards a more sustainable and competitive vision. However, there is a strategic disconnection in SSCM between sustainability and strategies related to competitive advantage. Therefore, the objective of this research is to propose a decision-making model to assess the sustainability and competitiveness strategically of a Mexican agri-food focal SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprise) that leads its supply chain. It is validated with comparative analysis in the productive taro activity through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) that contributes to prevent or to face problems such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. This research is based on a case study methodology divided into four stages. Three presented alternatives are assessed and compared by thirty-five criteria: a) A current situation without sustainability, b) Cost leadership strategy considering sustainability, and c) Differentiation strategy considering sustainability. The conclusions indicate more feasibility and compatibility to achieve sustainability with a differentiation strategy than with a cost leadership strategy. The current crisis should lead us to think beyond COVID-19, as we have more challenges ahead, such as climate change, environmental impacts, poverty, among other aspects that could cause instability around the world. Therefore, the current situation should be an impetus to further progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, in this case, through the theory of SSCM. That is why this model contributes strategically to the SSCM, to develop greater long-term resilience in the Mexican agri-food focal SMEs and their supply chains.

he present work is undertaken as part of research studies aiming to provide sociotechnical systems with a decision-making tool that supports them in assessing the resilience of their processes. The ultimate objective is to fix the identified imperfections in order to steadily gain strength and effectiveness to cope with new and existing threats and challenges. In that respect, this paper presents a framework called 3R process whose goal is to calculate the resilience score for a process based on several parameters and grade it on the resilience scale. In order to achieve this, a fuzzy model has been put in place and graphic user interfaces have been designed so that the 3R process becomes an integral part of daily working practices. Finally, a real case company example in the context of COVID-19 is exposed towards putting into practice the proposed model.

Logistics is a science and art that has been widely used by large commercial chains, whose main objectives focus on the distribution of products or services. This understanding has generated various logistics studies directed towards those businesses, without considering that science can also be applied to small or medium enterprises.
The present study initially executes a bibliographic review of multiple works done by several authors that confirm that studies related to the field of logistics can be aimed at any organization. The theoretical investigation of this study is therefore widely supported.
This work is focused on helping a small enterprise continue offering its services during the pandemic caused by the worldwide presence of COVID-19. Hence, the purpose of this research is to present a logistics model that will allow a small supermarket to continue its commercial activities in Quito, Ecuador, in compliance with diverse regulations issued by the Ecuadorian Government. The logistical model uses the methodology called savings method developed by Clarke and Wright.
The designed model produces as a main outcome the establishment of short-distance home delivery routes of provision to customers by the supermarket, thereby achieving significant savings in time and money. Additionally, the design and implementation of the model can serve as an example to be replicated in similar businesses.

This work presents the development and improvement obtained by implementing inventory managing practices during the COVID 19 pandemic in a Mexican company, a leader in the industrial sector to overcome the effects on the Company’s economies due to constrained market to maintain liquidity and preserve employment by increasing customer service level ensuring the availability of the finished product and improving the delivery time in the distribution center, from the receipt of the customer’s order, order picking, shipment preparation, invoicing and final delivery to the customer. The areas involved are Commercial, Demand and Materials Planning, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Logistics, and Operations of the Distribution Center. The deployment process considered an ABC study, analysis of the historical demand, product inventory coverage days, analysis of the lead time components of the distribution center, to implement a minimum and maximum inventory control policy for the product portfolio A and manufacture products classified as B and C on a make to order basis, an audit was performed of its distribution center, to identify opportunities for improvement in their processes to reduce the time of delivery to the customer.
The Company was not in compliance with the level of customer service with an 89% performance due to the low availability of the finished product inventory, affecting the customer’s delivery time in the distribution center with a time of 5 hours versus the goal of 90 minutes per event.
The implementation of the improvement achieved an increase in the level of service up to 5% starting the fourth quarter of 2019, the savings in inventory optimization at an annual base represented USD 530,785.00 (Five hundred thirty thousand seven hundred eighty-five dollars), and the Company has implemented this good practice nationwide in its other Manufacturing Plants and Distribution Centers as part of the strategic corporate policy deployment.

The constant market change and the critical role of the logistics process in the supply chain need to have special attention because it is an essential piece for the global business strategy. This paper presents an assessment of the processes of handling material from Asia suppliers to North America. The data utilized for the analysis is of 12 months of 2019, valuable input to support the proposal to the company to approve the changes to get a financial gain. The proposal aims to create a complete analysis starting on how the containers are loaded currently in Asia (floor loaded) and the complexity that this strategy creates for the whole supply chain. The analysis of the overall process aims how the proposed change (pallet loaded) will reduce demurrage cost annually (USD 147,000), lead time (from 6 days to 3 days), space utilization in the facility (reduce space by 6364 sqrt/ft), reduce operational cost annually (USD 210,000), improve safety (Risk factor savings annually of USD 61,100), and on-time delivery to the customer (Increase 4% ).

The main issue that is being presented in 2020 is the impact that all organizations are having due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is not for less given the global collapse that is occurring in all aspects. Many organizations have been affected by this catastrophe and in the face of an unforeseen scenario, the disruptions in the different supply chains have revealed the lack of some essential products for human consumption.
For organizations that are looking for alternatives of what to do and that are constantly analyzing how to reinvent their processes to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic and thus stay current during the contingency, they have before them the challenge of strengthening their supply chains, however It is difficult to think that the contagion of this virus that has brought the great powers of the planet to their knees, collapsing their productive, economic and especially health systems.
This research aims to propose a model that allows the development of an action plan in the event of the COVID-19 contingency in the sector of companies classified as essential, such as the retail industry. It is not enough to have well-defined and structured processes, these must also be dynamic and interconnected to privilege the distribution of essential products and for this it is important to be clear about the pillars of supply chain management and the key elements that they proposed.
Organizations must learn to protect their supply chains and to achieve it research offers a perspective on how to assess the level of risk of the processes of the retail industry and thus have identified the opportunities that will have to improve to build a resilient supply chain and strengthened.

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This paper examines the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and selected commodity variables on Booking.com share price using the Markov-switching approach. Daily data spans from January 2017 through July 2020 are utilized in this study. Empirical evidence showed that COVID-19, international crude oil price, and gold price affected the Booking.com share price significantly. A positive relationship was detected between international crude oil price and gold price towards stock price whereas COVID-19 showed an inverse impact on stock price. The empirical findings evidenced a 1% increase in COVID-19 cases adversely affecting the share price by -0.27%. Our findings also suggested that the potential of another wave of COVID-19 is relatively higher as the bounce back period was identified as 67 days. The filtered and smoothed probabilities signaled the Booking.com share price chronologically, and transition probabilities were identified. Six cycles were outlined, and the effectiveness of the Markov-switching approach in detecting vulnerable financial forecasting was demonstrated. The adequate dating evolution provided satisfactory input for policymakers, investors, and researchers to design and mitigate volatility in commodities and crises.

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