“Pivoting” by food industry firms to cope with COVID‐19 in developing regions: E‐commerce and “copivoting” delivery intermediaries
研究了发展中国家食品企业在疫情中转向电子商务和电子采购，以及配送中介如何协同配合，帮助维持供应链和粮食安全，对政策制定者和企业管理者有参考价值。
Coronavirus disease 2019 and related lockdown policies in 2020 shocked food industry firms' supply chains in developing regions. Firms "pivoted" to e-commerce to reach consumers and e-procurement to reach processors and farmers. "Delivery intermediaries" copivoted with food firms to help them deliver and procure. This was crucial to the ability of the food firms to pivot. The pandemic was a "crucible" that induced this set of fast-tracking innovations, accelerating the diffusion of e-commerce and delivery intermediaries, and enabling food industry firms to redesign, at least temporarily, and perhaps for the long term, their supply chains to be more resilient, and to weather the pandemic, supply consumers, and contribute to food security. We present a theoretical model to explain these firm strategies, and then apply the framework to classify firms' practical strategies. We focus on cases in Asia and Latin America. Enabling policy and infrastructural conditions allowed firms to pivot and copivot fluidly.