The Hershey Company, headquartered in Hershey, Pa., is a global confectionery leader known for bringing goodness to the world through its chocolate, sweets, mints and other great-tasting snacks. The company has more than 80 brands around the world that drive more than $7.4 billion in annual revenues, including such iconic brand names as Hershey's, Reese's, Hershey's Kisses, Jolly Rancher, Ice Breakers and Brookside. Building on its core business, Hershey is expanding its portfolio to include a broader range of delicious snacks.

During the pandemic, Hershey quickly adapted and figured out a way to sell more chocolate. They realized that US zip codes with high coronavirus cases spiked their milk chocolate bar by 40 to 50 percent. Due to people spending more time outdoors to try to stop the spread of the virus.

"Our teams quickly created a model that combined actual and projected Covid-19 cases by zip code with store level traffic and sales trends," said CEO Michele Buck in a pre-recorded message discussing the company's third quarter sales. "We were able to predict spikes in demand, adjust our manufacturing schedules, and proactively get the right amount of inventory into the right stores."

Another example of how the Hershey company that used their external environment to adapt their strategic paling is ahead of Halloween Hershey adapted and launched a website partnered with Harvard that mapped out safe ways to trick-or-treat in every US county. Office workers even volunteered to work in stores and production plants to help out ahead of the holiday. The company has seen a net sales increase of 4% in comparison to last year by adapting quickly to the pandemic.

What do you think of these two strategies, class?