On 20 April 2020, Boston Consulting Group, an American management consulting company, published a report to address perspectives facts, scenarios, and actions for leaders in the post-COVID-19world.

In this report they studied the Total Shareholder Return (TSR) (or simply total return) of top S&P Global 1200 companies in two periods, first from 21 February 2020 (before international acceleration of COVID-19 outbreak) to 20 March 2020 (trough of the market) and from 20 March 2020 through 15 April 2020. [Note: TSR is a measure of the performance of different companies' stocks and shares over time]

In this report, they clustered all these 1200 companies in several major industries (based on GICS definitions) and then categorized them in three major groups of Healthier sectors, Pressured sectors, and Vulnerable sectors.

The table below shows their reaction to the COVID-19 in terms of TSR. Darker colors project the sectors hit by this crisis harder and harsher.

Now, assume you are a managerial economist and a business analyst/consultant.

Pick one sector from each group (one from Healthier sectors, one from Pressured sectors, and one from Vulnerable sectors) and imagine you are hired by a firm operating in each of these sectors.

How do you analyze the future of that industry and the behaviour of the firms in that sector in post-COVID-19 era? What do you recommend to the management team of these three different firms working in different sectors to do to have a better performance in future?

Try to articulate your answers in SCP framework. This means apply SCP on each firm and each sector separately.

Feel free to add any assumption to your report if you need it (like there will or will not be the second wave of crisis in future, or there will or will not be a COVID-19 vaccine available in 6 month or a year or more).

TSR performance Americas Europe Asia 21 Feb '20 - 21 Feb '20- 21 Feb '20- 21 Feb '20- 21 Feb 20 - 21 Feb '20 - 20 Mar '20 22 Apr '20 20 Mar '20 22 Apr '20 20 Mar '20 22 Apr '20 Observations Food/staples Retail -10% -3% -15% -12% .8% -10% Pharma -19% 1% -20% -5% -22% -1% Healthier sectors Household Products -19% -6% -16% 8% -5% 5% Non-discretionary/essential service less hit but Telecom still had recovery -17% -11% -20% -19% -14% 6% Semiconductors -30% -10% -43% -24% -27% -17% Food & Beverage -26% -14% 24% -17% -12% -3% Utilities -33% -17% -30% -28% -6% 79% Health Equipment -33% -14% -31% -15% -11% -4% Software -30% -14% -32% -22% -28% Broad set of industries experiencing -16% pressure, with some regions particularly Pressured sectors Tech Hardware -29% -17% -25% -11% -23% -18% affected for certain sectors Prof. Services -30% -21% -29% -21% -31% -23% Materials -34% -20% -31% -19% -30% -23% Utilities and health equipment generally Retailing -42% -28% -36% -29% -24% -8% better off in Asia Capital Goods -38% -24% -35% -27% -29% -23% Financials -36% -22% -35% -25% -19% -12% Transport -37% -25% -38% -33% -13% -14% Media -36% -24% 47% 42% -14% 0% Insurance -42% -34% -40% -32% -27% -19% Hospitality -44% -30% 47% -37% -23% -17% Vulnerable sectors Banks -41% -37% -44% -47% -26% -23% Hardest hit sectors had some recoveries but Real Estate -42% -33% -26% -22% -22% -11% still performing way below 21 Feb 2020 levels Auto -47% -38% -45% -35% -32% -25% Durable Goods -49% -38% -32% -23% -21% -14% Energy -57% -43% -45% -30% -41% -31%