Forecasts
Business Reopening Decisions and Demand Forecasts during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Findings from a nationwide survey underscore the importance of demand projections and interdependencies among businesses for owners’ reopening decisions. Businesses expect the demand for their services will be greatly depressed for many months to come. How quickly will African businesses reopen after COVID-19 lockdowns end? A plurality of firms in a sample expect to reopen within days of the end of legal restrictions, but a sizable minority expect to delay their reopening. While health-related variables, such as COVID-19 case rates and physical proximity of workers, do explain the prevalence and expected duration of regulated lockdown, these variables have little or no correlation with post-lockdown reopening intentions. Instead, almost one half of closed or partially open businesses said that their reopening would depend on the reopening of related businesses, including customers and suppliers. Owners expect demand to be one-third lower than before the crisis through autumn. Firms with more pessimistic expectations about demand predict a later reopening. Using an instrumental variables strategy, we estimate the relationship between demand expectations and reopening. These estimates suggest that post-lockdown delays in reopening can be explained by low levels of expected demand.
- Explain how models of decision making can be effectively used during the re-opening and
forecasting demand of breweries and sports sectors globally during COVID time. - Discuss the challenges faced by managers in using group decision techniques during turbulent times of COVID 19.
- Advise organisations on how they can effectively manage systematic decision making during COVID 19 epidemic .
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