Managing Customers & Business Strategy in Today's Volatile Environment

More than 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are starting to emerge to discuss how their businesses have changed and what permanent effect this will have.

Three Kansas City leaders sat down at the October ACG breakfast to talk about how their organizations are continuing their evolution since March 2020.

For Paul Fenaroli, CEO of Examinetics, March 2020 was still his honeymoon period with the company. He’d only been on the job for 90 days when his team had to switch gears overnight. Examinetics offers on-site health screenings for businesses, and saw its business halt when workers were sent home, businesses closed and everything came to a standstill.

“Within 10 days, we redeployed our techs to do COVID testing,” Fenaroli said. “It was a really hard time. Our service is very intimate, you have to be in close contact with people. We are constantly on alert and have to just read and react to what’s happening.”

One industry that had to turn on a dime after being directly impacted by the pandemic as fast food. For Michael Kulp, CEO of KBP Foods, which owns more than 800 restaurants (Kentucky Fried Chicken, A&W, Taco Bell and Long John Silver’s) across 25 states, saw its business drop 40 percent overnight when the pandemic started.

“Four weeks later, our delivery business was up 1,200 percent,” Kulp said. “We went on to have our strongest 18 months ever. We’ll complete 15 transactions this year alone.”

At Genesis Health Clubs, though, the pandemic was a moment of overwhelming distress and uncertainty for a much longer period of time, said Rodney Steven, the company’s CEO.

“We were mandated to shut down,” Steve said. “I was one of those who really thought it would only be two weeks. We didn’t furlough anyone until long after we should have.”

Today, however, with more and more people vaccinated and a better understanding of how the virus transmits, Genesis is seeing incredible growth, over even pre-COVID numbers. (It doesn’t hurt that science shows that obesity is a factor in how severe or life-threatening COVID-19 can be for an individual.)

“Some of our clubs lost 1,500 in the first six weeks of the pandemic,” Steven said. “But now, we have 30 clubs back to their pre-COVID numbers and we are on track for 2022 to be our best year ever.”

What made the difference for these business leaders? They each pointed to their teams’ ability to quickly assess the situation, make recommendations and then execute oft-changing plans.

Kulp said the speed at which his team can see and use data is so much quicker now than before 2020. That is good on the one hand, but also means that he and other company leaders have to consciously take time to weigh their decisions – to make sure that a short-term gain isn’t going to be harmful in the long run.

“It’s important to check in with people after a change to see how it was received,” Kulp said.

Steven learned that lesson when he discovered that a change he’d long resisted – allowing people to join clubs through an online portal – proved to be extremely popular with the public.

“Since reopening, 30 percent of our membership is coming from online,” Steven said.

While these three business leaders are looking to a positive future, they are still facing pandemic-related challenges.

Hiring is chief among them. It’s hard to convince people that they can make a career in food service and that the money is worth it, Kulp said. KBP has thousands of management and team member jobs open in nearly all of its markets.

Changes made during the pandemic may also be here to stay. Businesses forced into doing things differently often found new or better ways to deliver for customers.

Fast food may never be the same, Kulp said. Lobbies aren’t going to disappear, but they aren’t the draw they once were.

“Our digital business is 2000 percent over what it was pre-COVID,” Kulp said. “Most consumers had never had our food delivered before this, and they discovered it was a real convenience.”

Fenaroli is having to find ways to get employees home more often during the week instead of them being on the road performing tests and screenings. He’s had to work out more safety procedures for his teams as well.

Working from home or closer to home has led people to shift their mindsets as well, Fenaroli said

“They weren’t paying for parking, for lunch out, for daycare; people really realized the cost of working and the market has to find the market clearing price for that,” Fenaroli said.