Tracking the Impact of COVID-19
The COVID-19 crisis poses unique challenges to all industries, especially those in hospitality. According to the National Restaurant Association, the foodservice industry alone could sustain $225 billion in losses and eliminate 5-7 million jobs over the next three months if no government action is taken. They have an online petition on their website for federal support for the industry.
In terms of tracking foodservice activity, OpenTable has shown up to 100% decline in reservations on their platform. Datassential estimates that 460,000 foodservice operators across 20 states have forced to close due to orders from state authorities as of March 20. Both websites provide great resources for restaurant owners and foodservice operators during this time.
COVID-19 and the FES Industry
While we expect the effect to be temporary, the Foodservice Equipment & Supplies industry will face upstream effects as the restaurant industry stalls. To make sense of how the COVID-19 crisis will impact the FES industry, we have been monitoring key metrics on our platform. As we all navigate the COVID-19 crisis, we want to make this data available to everyone in order to promote transparency and data-driven decision making.
In the opening weeks of the national emergency, we have begun to see a slowdown in user activity, project starts, and quoting volume. This may be due in part to decreased productivity as companies move to work-from-home or reduced in-office workforce presence. The good news is that the vast majority of our daily active users are still spending a significant amount of time every day on AQ quoting projects. Quoting volumes, while decreased, are still significant. This could change over time, and we will be tracking it as it does.
About the Data
The following data was pulled from our platform and is aggregated across all users with AQ CPQ licenses, including dealers, distributors, manufacturers, designers, rep firms, and more. The data does not include the many users of our other products, such as AQ Designer and AQ Insight, and only includes North American users. When possible, we have given week-over-week comparisons as a guide. We currently have the following data available:
- Daily user activity, with comparison to the same day of the previous week.
- Daily quote volume, with comparison to the same weekday of the previous month.
We will continue to update this data and add to it over time as new information becomes available
User Activity Chart
Daily Active Users on AQ CPQ in North America. The blue line shows the activity by day, and the green line shows the activity from the same day in the previous week, for comparison. Dotted lines indicate ongoing days with incomplete data.