Robust scenario analysis will play a critical role as companies stabilise their immediate response to the COVID-19 outbreak and create a strategy for recovery. There are many unknowns about the future – we don’t know yet how quickly restrictions on movement and social distancing requirements will be lifted in different sectors, how long it will take for the pandemic to be brought under control, or whether the outbreak has prompted long-term changes to customers’ behaviour. The companies that will be best placed to survive this crisis will be those that have planned for different eventualities and used robust and comprehensive data to make rapid, intelligent decisions.