During the pandemic, e-commerce became the default way of doing business for many retailers, from small businesses to major chains. But have they been up to the resulting resilience, supply, and cybersecurity challenges brought on by COVID-19 and a busy holiday shopping season?

Google commissioned a survey of retail executives worldwide to learn about how COVID-19 had exposed their strengths and weaknesses. Most said the pandemic had caught them by surprise, which showed in their business continuity capabilities:

• Only 43% said their company was properly equipped with the right tools to maintain business continuity in the early stages
• 51% said their company overall was prepared to deal with the shift from brick-and-mortar to online retail, and
• 47% said their company is accelerating cloud adoption to ensure continuity as a response to COVID-19.

Cyber resilience and supply chain complications proved to be their biggest issues. 20% said dependence on legacy technology had created greater short or long-term risk for their operational resiliency, with increases in website crashes and resulting downtime during peak holiday traffic. And a resounding 94% said COVID-19 supply chain and fulfillment worries continue to keep them up all night – especially as the current online retail habits aren’t going away anytime soon.

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