Consumer shopping habits have changed in light of COVID-19, significantly impacting retailers over the last six months. We suspect that many of these new habits are here to stay. Modern retailers need to adjust to better anticipate what consumers will be buying, at what frequency, and through what channel.

In some cases, grocery businesses are transitioning from a 98% foot traffic business to one that is having to fulfill orders across multiple channels. The volume puts a significant amount of stress on the operations and supply chain, but more specifically on a retailer's gross margin. Retailers are placing big bets and making strategic buys in anticipation of increasing and continued demand for specific categories and items. The trick is to create agility across your operations to respond quickly and maintain service levels while offsetting increased costs.

How do you maintain the agility across all of your retail operations to respond quickly while preserving the operating margins? Moreover, how can you address all of the new consumer journeys cost-effectively? Where and how can you generate additional revenue? And how can you do all of this while placing the right product, in the right place, at the right time, with the right offer to meet the consumer demand? It's like changing the tire as you fly down a highway at 75 mph an hour. Grocers need to take out cost, drive revenue, and they need to do it quickly. Let's break this apart and review the top challenges in more detail.