When sales volumes are down, price becomes the only revenue-lever that companies can address to maintain profits. While the thought of price changes can be overwhelming to many businesses, when approached correctly, price manipulations can have a significant impact on companies’ bottom-line. Changes in price should not be made without careful consideration. If poorly executed, unthoughtful pricing changes can do more harm than good to a company’s performance. However, a fact-based approach can address concerns about price adjustments while enabling sustainable and profitable growth.

In recent years, consistent economic prosperity has driven companies to focus on top-line growth. Abundant access to liquidity has motivated companies to introduce new products and customer segments with limited consideration for cost-drivers or complexity. While these additions may appear attractive in a highly competitive economy, the seismic economic shift caused by COVID-19 has revealed the latent danger in these approaches.

While working capital management is a component of all businesses daily practices, COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of effective strategies for cash management. This Value Paper outlines guidance for how companies can free up capital in the short term to confront COVID-19 related disruptions to cash-flow and also offers principled strategies for how companies can improve their working capital processes in the short, medium, and long-term.

For many companies, COVID-19 has led to strategic and operational disruption and heightened uncertainty. Due to the unpredictable nature of the crisis, companies can no longer be judged according to prior standards. However, opportunistic investors can capitalize on this uncertainty by conducting stringent due diligence that assesses the commercial outlook of both industries and companies as well a operational capabilities.

Commercial aviation remains one of the industries most disrupted by COVID-19 and has endured one of the industry’s worst financial years on record. While travelers continue to stay at home as COVID-19 has begun to resurge in many places, new COVID-19 vaccine distribution efforts present commercial airlines with a financial and humanitarian opportunity. Cargo bottlenecks, capacity shortages, and limited cold-chain infrastructure will challenge air cargo distribution efforts, and commercial airlines have a real chance to capitalize on new cargo transport needs to get planes back in the skies and help get travelers back on the go.

In 2020, COVID-19 served as the latest reminder of the importance of an efficient and resilient supply chain. As coronavirus introduced unanticipated and widespread disruptions to countries around the world, supply chain organizations both large and small saw the impact of long lead times, rising costs, and material shortages.