Covid-19 has had a unique impact on business. Among other things, whereas many businesses faced challenges in market, the demand for various products skyrocketed shortly when the pandemic commenced. Some of these products were directly related to health and safety, such as hand sanitizers, thermometers, and eye shields. For several months after the pandemic, a simple medical mask was like gold dust.

To no surprise, after a few months, many of these items gradually came back to the shelves. Particularly for face masks, while the multiple-use washable masks emerged and became a new commodity in family basket, the supply of regular three-layer medical masks gradually increased. After a few months, one could receive discounted offers through social media networks or community postings. Many new suppliers or sellers of face masks were not able to sell what was gold dust just a few months earlier.

In a related note, one year after the pandemic, in an introductory business course, professor divided students into 10 teams and asked the teams to bring a few viable business ideas to class. Interestingly but not surprisingly, producing face masks was proposed by almost half of the teams.

The knowledge of strategy could easily predict what happened in this volatile business since the pandemic started. Choose one (or more) of the frameworks/ models/ matrices/ concepts we discussed in this course and use it to answer these questions:

b) Explain how strategy knowledge could predict what happened in the following months, when the products returned to the shelves. (2 points)

Notice: Please start with choosing the framework that can explain this phenomenon and describe it briefly. Then apply that knowledge to this phenomenon. Do not repeat the given information per se; instead, use the information the clarify how what happened could be predictable by theory.