Rapid Response: Inside Panera’s pandemic pivot, with CEO Niren Chaudhary

Masters of Scale

WaitWhat

Entrepreneurship, Business, Management, Reid Hoffman, Mindset, Diversity & Inclusion, Jeff Berman, Bob Safian, Startups

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2020

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What do you do when you can’t serve customers in cafes and carry on business as usual? You try unusual things, says Panera CEO Niren Chaudhary. Forced to close cafes and restructure teams, Panera is leveraging its advantages (like a robust e-commerce system) to launch a slew of initiatives, from Panera Grocery to contactless delivery to Together Without Hunger, providing 500,000 meals to food banks across the U.S. It’s not the same Panera, says Chaudhary, but a Panera that will make it into the post-pandemic world. Interviewed by editor Bob Safian.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, you may have heard read talking about the future of AI and chat GPT on
0:04.8	Master's of Scale recently.
0:06.6	If you're interested in learning more, I want to recommend Wired's new podcast Have
0:10.6	a Nice Future.
0:12.0	Each episode explores the future of AI through illuminated conversations, featuring top technologists,
0:17.7	thinkers, and creators who share stories of how politics, culture, commerce, and more
0:22.3	are all touched by technology.
0:24.8	New episodes of Have a Nice Future are released every Wednesday.
0:28.2	You can listen and follow now wherever you get your podcasts.
0:31.4	Just before the virus hit us, we thought we had a very compelling strategy that we were
0:37.4	in the process of implementing and feeling pretty good about the year.
0:42.0	And then suddenly COVID-19 hit us.
0:45.4	Within a week we saw a huge drop in our sales.
0:49.8	And in that very first week we realized that this is big.
0:54.6	So early in as a team we stepped back very quickly and said, what's truly important?
1:02.3	We've decided to provide free family meals to all our associates once a week, including
1:08.8	our fellow associates.
1:10.9	We have made an arrangement with brands like CVS and Walmart who are actually hiring
1:15.9	at the moment.
1:17.2	We launched 1000 curbside pick-up drive-ups in seven days flat.
1:23.8	And all the cafes in which we don't have a drive-through.
1:26.5	We set up a new line of business in just two weeks.
	...

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