War notes: How Ukrainian retail business is managing the impossible. Poland & CEE Retail Summit.

thank you very much for giving me the stage to talk about very hard but at the same time very important topic about how the ukrainian business despite the start of the war is fighting maybe not at the front with the weapons but still for the people's lives my name is helen shibanik and i'm a product director at leafy we have helped over 100 retail chains to accelerate margin and revenue growth through the automation of uh replenishment optimization landogram optimization and promotional efficiency we have projects in 60 different countries and have offices in estonia usa and ukraine and since we have dozens of customers from ukraine we are in touch with them and we support them so we know very well how they feel now and

what changes have occurred with their supply chains and their business and how they are managing the impossible to proceed working nevertheless they are under the bombs and that is what i would like to share with you today uh i'm ukrainian and it really hurts to see how the russian occupies are destroying my native land every minute every day somebody loses their homes relatives and loses hope every day people are dying on the streets and every day new lives are being born in the bone shelters it is very hard to talk about this topic but nevertheless there are more than four million people who have left our country and became

refugees and half of these people are here in poland and every ukrainian is very grateful for all polish people and poland for this warm welcome i'm proud of my country that i have never been proud before i'm proud of soldiers and all those civilians who help them to win this world and i'm also proud of ukrainian retail this is one of our customers the retail chain called nos which is one of top three most successful grocery retailers in ukraine uh in 2021st they have acquired ukrainian branch of villa and their chain consists of 89 stores and the assortment range is more than 48 000 of skus this is how their main office looked like before the shelling

and this is how their office looks now this office was fully destroyed just a couple of weeks ago and this retail chain had moved to this office just a few months ago and furthermore their flagship supermarket was also destroyed as it was at the same location a retail chain called novus and a lot of other customers and retail chains in ukraine are saying about the very significant changes in the supply chain of course in those regions where the supply chains still exist in such states like buchan marijuana the supply chain ceased to exist in those regions in those cities volunteers are helping people to get food and water with the help of the volunteer

system with the help of the humanitarian assistance and they say that it is very hard it is very hard to see grateful eyes full of tears and fear of death and going back to the topic of my report i had a chance to talk with our customers and other retail chains in ukraine and here is a list of how the supply chain changed in the country first of all on the first week of the war suppliers stopped the award for the estimations of our customers nearly 10 to 30 percent of all suppliers start their activity on the second week of the war uh suppliers and manufacturers were trying to resume their work to restart their work but in the amount of full sale of the leftovers so everything

that was bought to the workhouses from the manufacturers was just sold out and nevertheless the stop of the manufacturers which was caused by the structural [Music] structural destroys of the warehouses and logistics hubs furthermore a lot of workhouses were burned were destroyed and it provoked retailers to use their own logistics to use their own transport because they really need to get this food and water for the population even from the alternative sources for example our customers from khaki do not have his distributional center anymore because it was destroyed and they were forced to uh change to switch to their direct supplies from the

suppliers to their shops and their currently use their cross-doping model as well because of the significant changes of the supply chain the retail business model has changed as well before the war let's say ukrainian especially grocery retail uh was working on the models which was based uh on the that delayed payment must be bigger it must be more than the inventory turnover and after after the work after the beginning of the war everything has changed vice versa so suppliers do not give the delayed payment they are they have switched to the full payment upon delivery before the war suppliers and manufacturers were just fighting to get to the shelves of the retailers and maybe accept some international suppliers like unilever nestle and so on

and after the beginning of the war as i have already said the situation changed the assortment metrics ceased to exist as well because before the beginning of the war 90 percent of all the assortment was tightly connected with the suppliers and the remaining 10 percent uh which was socially important goods and medicines uh they were replenished based on the stock of the supplier and uh and the price after the beginning of the war the assortment metric systems specifications cease to exist so everything has has really changed uh one of our customers keith richard has different assortment in all his shops due to the territorial uh territorial difference within the shops

of course oil zest that led to the shortage of social goods and in some regions severe deficit for instance in kharkiv region there were no butter for three weeks so the situation really difference differs from from region to region but retailers still are willing to make everything possible to ensure the food and water in their shops and of course a lot of changes a lot of social changes took place during from the beginning of the war a lot of male population were attracted to the armed forces who are volunteer to their territorial defense as i have already said there are a lot of refugees in our country they have moved to other regions and abroad uh a lot of enterprises cease to exist and stop their work and people just lose their jobs

all this led to the dramatic decrease of the purchasing power of the population uh and uh their structure of demand as well so the premium products uh the demand for the premium products was uh dramatically decreased and vice versa for social items that demand was increased very very well very very big despite all these changes despite all these problems retailers are fighting like heroes to ensure that the population has a possibility to eat drink please their children and just support the economy of ukraine so what they particularly do most of the retailers it is the most important task of course provide food water to the army volunteers refugees and of course the civilian population it is very hard to imagine how it is to

not know which shops will not open tomorrow and which tracks will not deliver goods to their final destination but people heroic people they are opening shops every morning and they are facing new days and new challenges each day we have several toy retailers among our customers of course toys are not socially important goods but nevertheless within the sizer desire of the management of toy retailers to please children they decided to open all stores that were not damaged furthermore they organized the delivery of toys to children's houses and bomb shelters just to smooth a little bit all this horror that children filled with explosions and with the darkness of the bomb shelters which will remain in the memories of thousands

and millions ukrainian children some retailers have united their efforts uh to in order to import goods from the europe especially on the western ukraine and as well it was done for the internal suppliers retailers and petrol stations have decided to provide an opportunity to withdraw the cash from the cash points in order for the population to have cash because banks stopped their work and a lot of bank infrastructure was damaged it is very hard to imagine how it is to go to the bomb shelters several times at night how it is to stay there all night without connection without heating without electricity it is very hard to imagine how it is not

to be at home for all these 43 days how it is to have no connection with relatives and friends for days and weeks people in ukraine are really exhausted they are tired and they're empty that's why a lot of retailers decreased working hours for uh their operational personal uh due to the fact that it is very hard psychologically to work all the working hours to support the economy of ukraine a lot of companies especially retailers pay taxes in advance not to let not to lead the war to destroy the economy sector as well uh companies uh that have their own tracks provided them to the armed forces and the territorial defense to the needs of all those defenders who helped to win

the war and who are particularly winning this war it is connected with all kinds of supplies and weapons as well despite the fact that it is very dangerous and the probability of the destruction of all those tracks is very high nevertheless people are still helping the army uh despite the fact that of course as i have already said the probability of the destruction is very very high i want to thank you from uh from my side and from the side of all ukrainians to thank uh poland and polish people uh we even don't have words to be as grateful as we are i think that every ukrainian will not forget this help for the end of uh our our lives

and i have never seen the people of ukraine so united i have never seen such enormous support of the president even another from another country not not only in ukraine i have never seen such pride when pronouncing i'm ukrainian and i have never thought it was possible in the 21st century i want to share a couple of minutes video to for you to imagine how dramatical everything is and from for another hand how courage our people are i think that we will win there is no other way and i'm proud to be here to stand here and uh to talk about this topic here in this on this stage so please

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