The consumer industry

Deloitte Consumer Leaders work with global brands to create winning strategies for the near future in the Automotive; Consumer Products; Retail; and Transportation, Hospitality & Services sectors. Our mission is to use our proprietary data and judgement to help you get closer to your consumers.

COVID-19 had a major impact on our clients in the consumer industry, most commonly because of demand plummeting during global lockdowns. The grocery sector, however, was overwhelmed by steep increases in demand and by disruptions to global supply chains and logistics infrastructure. This impact accelerated transformation in several of our clients’ business processes, such as those relating to the management of supply chains, moving from offline to online commerce, digitalisation of back-end-to-front-end processes, sustainability, cyber security and healthy nutrition.

Since shop floors were largely empty of customers during the year, the direct-to-consumer trend became even more prominent. Data collection – and the management, privacy, quality and structure thereof – consequently became a central focus for most Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) clients. Customers’ e-shopping behaviours showed a sharp decline in return shipments, and alongside this development came a boost in momentum for technology and platform businesses and the transport sector, with an unprecedented rise in package deliveries and logistic movements.

In the new financial year, we expect to see the focus on these topics not only continue but even grow further, with digitalisation and data being the common denominators in all transformations.

Dominique van Seggelen: 'While our Consumer Industry clients were one of the most affected businesses in the market, they have clearly shown a high degree of resilience through collaborating and innovating their business models, product portfolio’s and talent environment. It is with pride that I look back at year in which our people were true partners to our clients and explored and implemented new ways to recovery. The personal and authentic relationships that exist are an important contributor to the value and effectiveness of the support we could provide them with over the past year. We look forward to the future in which we will continue to support our consumer clients to collaborate and innovate for resilient and sustainable business.'

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