Ogaga Ologe, finance director of Cadbury Nigeria Plc, stated that the Covid 19 pandemic has prepared Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies for the current turbulent economy.
According to him, the similarities between the disruptions caused by the Covid 19 pandemic and the current state of the Nigerian economy have made FMCG manufacturers build resilient supply chains in this economy.
Ogaga stated this during his presentation at the February 17, 2024, industry economic outlook hosted by Nairametrics with the theme: FMCG: Sector challenges and opportunities.
The post-Covid impact on FMCGs in today’s Economy
Ogaga who was speaking on FMCG manufacturers building a resilient supply chain in a turbulent economy explained that the post-Covid phase had positively impacted how FMCG companies sell, source and distribute.
- “Although we lost a lot of people to the pandemic, the truth of the matter is that the pandemic helped us to see flaws we had in our supply chain and how FMCG companies sell to their customers.”
- “This has helped our sourcing strategy. We started to think about either sourcing locally or getting products offshore. We saw the global continuation issue that affected the availability of raw materials.”
- “Post Covid, FMCG companies saw that some of these materials that are sourced from offshore are available locally.”
- “Just some tweaking on some of the materials will give us something equivalent to what we are sourcing offshore.”
- “It has also affected our safety stock levels. It has helped us review processes so as not to be in that situation and help us see some of the flaws we had in our supply chain sourcing and strategy.”
- “On the customer’s selling side, the pandemic has helped us see how we maximise shipping to customers and logistics costs.”
- “Selling to supermarkets and neighbourhood stores used to be difficult but during the pandemic, we were able to revamp our selling processes in terms of ensuring that products are available in these stores.”
- “FMCG companies automated secondary selling processes by bringing out systems in place that will tell us when we have stock out at a particular wholesaler or retailer.”
Ogaga further disclosed that FMCG companies have invested in getting products closer to consumers instead of having consumers go out to look for these products.
