One looming question is whether the coronavirus could thwart Ocado’s expansion. When the pandemic first struck, Ocado encountered trouble obtaining a key part for its robots, because it was made in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak. (The company has since found an alternate supplier.) Ocado mostly hires local engineering teams, so travel bans have had little impact on its plans. And grocery and construction workers have been classified as essential in most places, enabling work to continue. Duncan Tatton-Brown, Ocado’s CFO, told reporters in March that the company is sticking to its guidance on the completion of its international CFCs. Still, he acknowledged that if restrictions on movement stayed in place for many months, the construction timeline would suffer.
Among those who visited Ocado was the U.K. grocer Morrisons, which had revenues far exceeding Ocado’s but didn’t have an online offering. The two companies reached a deal that sold half the capacity of Ocado’s newest CFC to Morrisons, with Ocado agreeing to manage the facility and a delivery fleet on Morrisons’ behalf. When Morrisons.com launched in January 2014, it was the first evidence that Ocado could put its platform to work for other grocers.
大概这段时间里，管理过科技初创企业的软件顾问保罗·克拉克接到了Ocado招聘人员的电话。“当时我说：‘很抱歉，但我不想做零售业。’” 60岁左右，身材瘦长的克拉克回忆说，虽然没去牛津大学读成博士，但一身学者风范。后来克拉克参观了Ocado的仓库，对其规模和复杂性印象尤为深刻。哈特菲尔德是自动化方面的巨大难题，正是他喜欢解决的工程问题。“我立刻爱上了。”他说。
Ocado正为其他最坏的情况做准备，主要问题是如果员工开始感染，或是全体团队要隔离该怎么办。（可能的解决办法包括从其他行业抽调休假员工去仓库，或开卡车送货。公司已经开始招收赋闲的Uber司机。）
病毒袭击之前，食品杂货店已承受巨大压力。“由于成本上升、效率下滑还有竞相降价，杂货店业务增长和盈利能力都在走低。”麦肯锡最近一份报告中写道。过去十年，北美和西欧的杂货店销售额增长率仅为2%。与此同时，咨询公司Mercator Advisory Group的数据显示，美国连锁杂货店平均净利润率只有1%至2%。不仅趋势令人沮丧，行业高层也很担心零售业的两大对头亚马逊和沃尔玛，两巨头均已明确表示要主导食品杂货业务。根据瑞银数据，沃尔玛已是美国最大的食品杂货销售商，市场份额为21.3%，比最接近的竞争对手超市连锁店克罗格份额高出一倍以上。
由于Ocado核心的食品杂货业务仍在努力证明可持续性，向其他领域拓展听起来有点压力。不过，如果想知道Ocado为什么想做停车场或港口运营业务，施泰纳有个现成的答案：如果当初亚马逊只卖书，现在会怎样？（财富中文网）