THE RESILIENCE OF THE FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Footwear plays an increasingly important role in the fashion industry and in the Portuguese economy. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected this type of industry, creating difficulties but also opportunities and challenges. Through interviews carried out on the structural basis of the footwear industry, namely at an associative and technological level, this paper addresses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the footwear industry and focuses on the potential resilience strategies implemented by the industry. The main results of the study show that the COVID-19 pandemic forced changes in the nature of business, namely: (1) manufacturers entered the B2C segment, shortening the supply chain; (2) it provided changes at the strategic level (greater focus on the development of operational and logistics strategies) and digitization (digital transformation to support the execution of essential activities); (3) development of new products (emergence of a market opportunity that was the specialization in classic sports).