Impact of COVID-19 on the Retail Industry: A Research Report

This research project examines the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the retail industry, focusing on the challenges and changes brought about by lockdowns and the resulting economic downturn. The report analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the pandemic's effects, including the impact on businesses like House of CB, and evaluates the need for strategic changes in corporate governance. Key themes explored include the impact of lockdowns, the advantages and disadvantages of the crisis, corporate governance and strategic changes, and retail industry strategies in dealing with the COVID-19 situation. The research methodology involves a discussion of data collection sources and a critical review of the research results. The report concludes with recommendations for organizations, emphasizing the importance of adapting to online shopping, maintaining financial stability, and ensuring employee safety. The study aims to provide insights for retail management and stakeholders on navigating and improving performance during the pandemic.

RESEARCH PROJECT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.
The report has been discussed the impact of covid-19 on the retail industry, it has been
discussed that due to lock down the retail industry have faced a lot of issues in the market. The
report highlighted the impacts with the advantages and disadvantages of the lock down on the
retail industry. Report concludes that lock down impacted the entire country and it has also
impacted on the working of people. It created a tough situation which also impacted in the
process of performance of business. It is important for the organization to provide work from
homes to those employees whose work can be done at home, and they also need to include the
online shopping in such situation to increase the performance. Maintaining the budget is
necessary as it also creates a balance in the working. The organization need the worker at
workplace then they need to provide the working safety to the employees.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
Aim and Objectives..........................................................................................................................5
Literature Review.............................................................................................................................5
Theme 1 The impact of lock down due to COVID-19 in retail industry.....................................5
Theme 2 The advantage and disadvantage of COVID-19...........................................................6
Theme 3 Corporate governance and strategic changes................................................................8
Theme 4 Retail industry strategies in dealing with COVID-19 situation....................................9
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................10
Discussion of sources of data collection....................................................................................10
Critical Review of the results of research..................................................................................16
CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS................................................................................19
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................23
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................26

INTRODUCTION
Research Questions:
 What is the impact of Covid-19 on the retail industry?
 Explain the advantages and disadvantages of Covid-19 crisis on operations of House of
CB?
 What is the current corporate governance strategy of House of CB and what strategic
changes are needed?
 What recommendations can be proposed to implement changes in company strategies of
House of CB to deal with the crisis?
Background:
The current situation of the market is very bad and the covid-19 have hit hard on the market all
over the world. It is affecting the retail sector in huge ways by the lock down which happened in
the world due to COVID-19. It is very impact full in the market and have impacted the loss in the
retail industry as the organization were not able to work due to lock downs and faced a huge loss
in the market. House of CB is working in the retail sector, and they are the fashion retailer for
women, it is one of the most talented retailer product which are offered by the owner.. The
company is presently closed but has been actively attractive in online store promotions. In order
to deal with the dynamic situation and government policies, current corporate governance and
management strategies of House of CB need to be changed in order to deal with the crisis.
Rationale: The reason of selection to this topic is very important because it affected the whole
world with huge losses and it also makes a lot of impact in overall business and market strength.
It is very important for the House of CB to understand the criticality of the covid-19 situation,
and they need to understand the process of working in the pandemic situation. They need to find
the ways to improve the situation and improve the profitability of the organization with working
in the pandemic. The retail industry has impacted due to the lock down and it also affected the
working and the salary of the people who are working in the different department of industry.
Significance: The study will help the management to understand the working and the process of
the retail sector and how they can utilize the pandemic situation in improvement in work. It is
very important for the retail industry and the people who are working in the retail industry.
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Significance explains the importance of the report and research and the ways in which the
research can be helpful.
Aim and Objectives
Aim: To critically analyse the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on House of CB, UK and the need
for change in corporate strategy to deal with the situation.
Objectives:
 To understand the impact of lock down due to Covid-19 on the retail industry
 To analyse advantages and disadvantages of Covid-19 for House of CB
 To understand the concept of corporate governance and strategic changes
 To devise changes in company strategy of House of CB in dealing with Covid-19
Literature Review
Theme 1 The impact of lock down due to COVID-19 in retail industry
As per the Harapan and et.al., (2020), Corporate governance refer to the laws and policies
made by the government on which the business are being operated. It also affects the internal and
external effect on the company's stakeholders and management. Crisis management is the
process of identification of threats in the organization and include the ways in which the threat
can be handled. Company deals with the crises by making proper strategies to eliminate the
crises and a proper direction to the process of working in increase to the developed performance.
The world is facing a huge impact due to the pandemic which is named by COVID-19. The
COVID 19 has caused a huge impact throughout the world with lots of death and cases of
COVID-19 which are impacting the whole world. The covenant in has impacted the whole world
and it is impacting the retail industries as well which are affecting the business and profitability
of the organizations and decrease of profits and increase in the losses the organizations and the
industries are facing. Lock down due to COVID-19 have impact the retail industries cause
government made a lot of decisions to stop the code and in pandemic and two give a huge impact
on the code 19 situations the government have allowed the lock down situation in the countries
and the retail industries has faced a lot of issues because there are no working an people are
losing their jobs as well as they are not able to work and earn money which is causing them in a
lot of issues in their personal and professional life.
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Wang and et.al., (2018), suggested that The retail industries have faced a lot of crisis due to the
lock down situations because the industries are working advance, and they have already made
different stocks for the coming period and due to the lock down situation the organizations and
different companies working in the retail sector were not able to sell their product and services to
the customers which make their product and services get expired and no sale caused them a huge
loss. Code 19 impacted as March is this month in which every organization do everything in the
financial year closing and the industries closed their high numbers than usual orders but due to
the covenant in situations everything changed.
As per the view of Li and et.al., (2018), many organizations and forms have reported a financial
Hit. Many of the retail organizations have faced a huge impact in their financial stability and it is
very important to understand how critical the COVID-19 in situations can be. the more time it
takes the huge impact it can be on the industries and it is very impactful in the economic stability
also for the country. The impact of COVID-19 and lock down on the retail industries is that,
people who are working have faced recession and country and the industries have faced a
recession and a huge impact in the economic stability which caused a lot of jobs loss to the
people working as organizations are unable to pay the amount due to the lock down for months
which have caused them a huge loss in the business. Retail industries have faced a lot of impact
due to the lock down as people got infected and are unable to get the cure, many of the people
died who are working in the organization and the industry of retail, and they need a total
protection for that the organization and the government has made different plans which include
the lock down of a month to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to reduce the impact of the
pandemic.
Theme 2 The advantage and disadvantage of COVID-19
According to the Harapan and et.al., (2020), Stakeholders are the party which have interest in the
company and can also affect or affected by the business. The primary stakeholders in the
organization are the investors, customers, employee etc. the retail industry is very vast and it is
important for the organization to make changes in the process of development and also to
increase the changes so that the stakeholders impact can be controlled. It is found that there are a
lot of advantage and disadvantage in the supermarket and retail industries where thousands of
people and customers go daily to buy their product and services and utilize the product and
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services offered by the organization and the industries. Retail industries provide every single
product which are used in the day-to-day process and it is one of the most important industry and
the biggest industries working in the UK. there are a lot of advantages which can be Found
because of the lock down as the lock down helped the people to Start learning different things
during the lock down. And to improve their personal skills and develop themselves to improve
their performance for the industries and for personal growth. The lock down also provides a huge
advantage of people who are working in the retail industries and other industries get time to
spend with family time, it allows a lot of employees to breach and met their families after a long
period and it also helped them in getting an emotional support from the families in the situation
of lock down which is very critical and needs to be taken care with all the responsibilities. It is
very important for the organizations and the industries to make sure that every employee get safe
to their houses and can meet their family and friends during the lock down. In which the industry
is shut down.
Ng and et.al., (2020), concludes that the disadvantage which caused due to COVID-19 situation
in the world as it has affected the economy of the country in the world in a huge impact and hit
the worst phase over the time. it is the one of the biggest economy crises and the economy of the
country is being affected due to COVID-19 which will take a lot of time to revive as the situation
is not under control and it is still not curable to fight with COVID-19 situations. Government
have made a lot of policies and procedures to work in the cover 19 and there are different
disadvantage which have come due to the lock down as the students are not able to go to their
school and colleges and are not able to complete their studies which can cause them a loss of a
lot of time. The issues faced by the worker, labour and employee who are working on the daily
wages and who are running their families on the daily wages are affected due to this lock down
which is very harsh as the recession also made the industries to take decisions of eliminating the
employees from the organizations and it has impacted a lot to the industry as well as the
employees. The labourers and the workers are affected very badly as their income and revenue
are completely stopped, and they do not have any other source of income during their family and
it is one of the disadvantages of COVID-19 lock down.
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Theme 3 Corporate governance and strategic changes
According to the Brodeur and et.al., (2020), Strategy and strategy planning are very crucial as
the government make a lot of corporate governance rules and laws. It needs to make sure that
they are developing the strategies and plan the strategy to accept the policies and laws of
government. It will help them in creating a better performance at the working and operational
level. Working in the industry needs o have a great impact and for that they need to make sure
that they follow the governance properly. Corporate governance plays a very important part as it
is one of the most important way by which the corporate governance is being managed by the
governance, and they make a combination of rules and processes of laws which the business and
the industries need to operate it to work in regulated and controlled way of working. It is very
important for the organizations to understand the criticality of corporate governance and the
ways they need to work in the industries by following all the corporate governance rules and
policies made by their governance and government rules. The impact of covenanting on the retail
industries is very high as all the basic necessity items are found in the retail industries and it is
very important in the time of COVID-19 to have all the necessary items to reach at every single
places and the people in the audience can apply for the product and services from the industries
in the time of COVID-19 lock down pandemic. The government has made a lot of laws and
policies of rules and regulations which the industries need to follow, and they need to take care
of all the regulations and corporate governance so that they can do the working in the process of
control and regulated way and also to provide the product and services to the audience in the best
way with taking care of all the situation of COVID-19. Governments have made different
regulations and precautions to make the pandemic end covenant in situations controlled and it is
very important for the industries to understand the criticality of the governance and the rules
made by the government needs to be followed.
As per the Mirzaie and et.al., (2020), the corporate governments are the rules made by the
government and the industry should understand that in the situation of COVID-19 it is very
important to utilize every source of income and work so that they can earn a good amount of
money as the situation is very worst and people don't have money in the lock down due to no
working. The industries have the responsibilities to provide the facilities and product and
services to every person who are willing to buy product and services from the organization
should get the product and services in the safest way and the company needs to follow all the
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precautions while providing the services. It is very important to follow all the rules and
regulations as the industry is need money so that they can provide the money to their employees
who are working for them in the pandemic situations and the decisions needs to be taken care by
following all the precautions of COVID-19 so that the disease cannot be spread in different
people. It is also very important for the retail industries and further government to make different
policies and strategies to control the covenant in situations and to provide all the facilities and
basic necessity to every citizen of the country so that they get all the ways and the product and
services.
According to the Villani and et.al., (2020), Corporate governance are the rules and regulations
which are followed by the industries and the industries need to make different strategies to work
in the code situations which is very important to utilize the best of the market so that they can
earn more in the situation of lock down where the people do't have a lot of money and the market
is unstable with lack of money and economic recession of the country.
Theme 4 Retail industry strategies in dealing with COVID-19 situation
According to the Workman and et.al., (2020), VUCA refer to Volatility, uncertainty, complexity
and ambiguity. VUCA conflates 4 distinct type of challenges which include 4 distinct type of
responses. The emergency strategy is referred to the action which are developed over time in
organization. It is due to the absence of mission and goals or can be a mission or goal. Retail
industries need to make a lot of strategies to work in the cover 19 situations as it is one of the
situations where people do not have money due to the lock down, and they were not able to work
and earn money which are affecting them to spend a lot of money on the retail industries and the
purchase and selling of products and services from retail industries. The retail industry is need to
make different strategies to control the loss as the market does not have a good amount of money
and it is important for the retail sector to utilize the opportunities which they're getting in the
cover 19 situations, and they need to make different strategies to take the precautions which are
made by the government, and they also need to make sure that they follow all the guidelines of
the government.
However, Gallo Marin and et.al., (2020), the retail industry’s need to make a lot of strategies
while working in the biggest sector of UK market. Retail industries need to make sure that they
follow all the precautions which are made by the government, and they need to follow all the
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government rules and regulations which government had made during the lock down and the
COVID-19 situations. it is very important to take all the strategies including the precautions with
sanitizing of product and services while delivering the product and services to the customers and
providing different ways so that that does not get infected during the process of sales and
services which also includes that they need to be considering all the equipment’s while working
in the lock down and pandemic situations so that there does not harm themselves and also
doesn’t spread the disease.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Discussion of sources of data collection
Data collection is the process of collecting the data from various sources in order to
achieve the objectives of the research and to draw significant interpretations from them. There
are basically two types of sources of data collection: Primary and Secondary. The primary data is
the first-hand data which is collected in the raw form whereas the secondary data is the already
collected data. Primary data is gathered through questionnaires, interviews, surveys etc. where
the researcher collects the data at the same time (Davies and et.al., 2020). Secondary data is
collected from the already published books, journals, research papers, articles, publications etc.
The objectives of the research are achieved by doing both the primary and secondary researches.
Primary research and sampling: The primary research is done by distributing the
questionnaires to the major employees of all the departments like Financial, Production, Human
Resource, purchasing, marketing etc. These respondents are 25 in number which is the suitable
number which will help in making suitable interpretations and overall results. This is purposive
sampling of non-probabilistic type as criteria is decided that only those employees of House of
CB will be chosen as respondents who participate in the decision-making of the organization.
The responses gained from the respondents help the researcher to know about the corporate
strategies that can be developed and implemented by the retail firms in this pandemic of COVID-
19 (Kannappan, 2020).
Secondary Research: This is done to gain deeper insights about the topic by going through
various books, journals, research papers etc. which are published by well-known authors.
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Various themes are made which segregated the whole objective and helped in gaining deeper
insights about each.
Ethical considerations: The respondents will submit the consent form and the researcher will
attach a declaration form while taking the questionnaires to ensure that all the data collected is
true to the knowledge of respondents and the researcher. The articles chosen were also recent
which helped in gaining information regarding the current situation.
DATA ANALYSIS
Thematic analysis will be used to analyse the data collected from various sources like
primary and secondary.
Theme 1: House of CB performs the operations in pandemic as well.
Does your company is performing the operations even in the
pandemic of COVID-19?
Respondents
Yes 20
No 5
Total 25
Interpretation: It can be interpreted from the above pictorial representation that majority of the
respondents i.e., 20 out of 25 respondents have gone with the response that the company House
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of CB performs its operations at the time of pandemic of COVID-19 also when most of the
companies stopped operating. Only 20% argued by choosing the option which says that the
company does not performs its operations in lock down.
Theme 2: Various operations of House of CB are impacted by the lock down.
Which operation House of CB is much affected by the lock down
due to COVID-19?
Respondents
Supply 5
Production 3
Marketing 3
All of these 14
Total 25
Interpretation: This can be analysed from the above graph that more than half of the total
respondents realized that only single operation is not affected by the lock down but various
operations are affected by this as the employees from different departments agreed with this.
Only some respondents felt that the pandemic is affecting only individual operations.
Theme 3: The company prefers to shifts its mode of performing operations from offline to
online.
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