Managing Customer Risks and Uncertainties During Pandemic: A Local

Food Business Perspective in Valencia City, Bukidnon

Baylon, Khert Jean M.

Case, Devanhy Jean D.
Gamil, Kristine Niña Clair P.
Mangubat, Steve Ryan O.
Sujitado, Phillip A.
Valmores, Dian Mae B.

May 2022
 CHAPTER I

Introduction

Rationale

Interest in risk identification and management has existed since

ancient times, stemming from the need to prevent events unfavorable to the well-

being of humanity (Crockford, 1982). Since then, the development of risk

management and related key functions has evolved over the years (Biolcheva,

2020). Today’s organizations operate within a complex and advanced society

where there is a high-risk which is very essential to organizations to implement risk

management strategies. Risk management is critical in uncertain times, it prevents

organizations from failing and allowing them to become more flexible and resilient.

However, in late 2019, a new Coronavirus was discovered in Wuhan, the capital

of Hubei province in Central China (Torsello & Winkler, 2020). In addition to day-

to-day risk management, emergency situations such as COVID-19 represent

moments of disruption without precedent in economic, social, environmental, and

geopolitical order at a global level (Fakhruddin et al. 2020; Ufua et al. 2021). The

unforeseen crisis, which is prolonged over time, radically changes the operating

scenario and the competitive environment of companies (Santibanez González et

al. 2019).

The Philippine government first imposed a nationwide lockdown to prevent

the spread of COVID-19 in March 2020. The pandemic was particularly

devastating to Filipinos who work in the informal economy, operating small food
stalls and other local food businesses on street corners from their doorstep and it

has drastically altered the experiences of customer’s attitudes and behaviours that

change how and what people buy, as well as hastening massive structural

changes in the consumer products industry. Given the current situation, it is critical

to gain knowledge on risk management so that local food businesses can analyse

the whole spectrum of risks they encounter and examine the relationship between

risks and the downstream effects they could have.

The significance of the study Managing Customer Risk and Uncertainty

During the Pandemic: A Local Food Business Perspective in Valencia City,

Bukidnon is a contextualization of the needs of local entrepreneurs and their

customers to continue operating businesses despite the pandemic and additional

uncertainties that may disrupt business operations. The research paper Managing

Risks was conducted to predict risks to businesses on the basis of experience,

trying to better govern the disorder. Risk management has the task of identifying

risks, measuring their probability and possible impact, and treating them by

eliminating or reducing their effect with the minimum investment of resources. Risk

management is being developed and adopted in a lot of fields, such as the

environment, healthcare, public safety, and enterprise management. This paper

considers risk management for small and medium enterprises. The research paper

about businesses’ resiliency, Coronavirus Pandemic and Business Disruption: The

Consideration of Accounting Roles in Business Revival, highlights practical

procedures that will enable businesses to effectively respond to unexpected

disruptions during a major outbreak. They prioritize people’s safety and the
continuous engagement of relevant stakeholders during crisis times. The

consideration of the impact of the coronavirus on accounting, reporting, and

internal controls on business operations is the key to building business resilience

in preparation for the new normal and sustainability. Therefore, in our study, we

extracted strategies and methodologies from both studies to better our study and

our interviews conducted to better our contextualization.

Meanwhile, the data that will be gathered by the researchers will be

paramount as to providing owners of food businesses in the locality of Valencia

Bukidnon. They can incorporate strategies to utilize in this time of pandemic that

contributes to customer risks and businesses’ uncertainties. This information will

be crucial as well for the businesses to evaluate their strategies that they used,

how to improve them, and how to use them in order to attain the common goal of

their businesses.

Research Questions

1. How do uncertainties and customer risks affect the sustainability of the

business?

2. In what ways do the business manage uncertainties and customer risks

during the pandemic?

Significance of the Study

The results of this study will be of great benefit to the following:

STUDENTS. The result of the study is beneficial to the business-related

student and accountancy as this provides information and study during pandemic
uncertainties in managing customer related risk. This study will help to advance

the cause of pandemic to different local food business of Valencia City, Bukidnon

and this can be used for further study.

TEACHERS. They are in charge of catering to students. They are useful in

a manner where they can teach students related to this study.

SCHOOL. The study will provide an improved and natural idea on how to

advance understand and combat uncertainties issues through proposing this

research that they can implement programs tackling business awareness amidst

pandemic to lessen business failures and advance study overcoming problems.

RESEARCHERS. This will assist the researcher in solving the problem and

providing more information on the challenges amidst pandemic that relate to a

business problem as well as possible solutions.

FURURE RESEARCHERS. The ideas presented may be used as a

reference data in conducting new researches or in testing the validity of other

related findings.

BUSINESS OWNERS. This study will help them reduce risk amidst

pandemic. Through this research, they will be given ideas and recommendations

how to survive their business through identifying their core uncertainties during

pandemic in customer managing.

Scope and Limitations of the Study

 The researchers limit this study in three different perspectives. In terms of

location, this research is applicable only in the locality of Valencia City, Bukidnon.

By method, this research is descriptive. By topic, this research focuses how local

food businesses manage customer risks and uncertainties during pandemic.

Theoretical Framework

The researchers will use the Bowtie Analysis Framework, Bowties

originated as a method for assessing operational risk. The bowtie method is a risk

assessment technique that it goes beyond the typical risk assessment "snapshot"

and highlights the links between controls, assurance and verification activities, and

the underlying management system; a valuable trait when assessing the ever-

changing nature of a pandemic (Sneddon, 2022)

Figure 1: Bowtie Framework

The bowtie analysis framework provides a visualization relationship

between the causes of business disruptions, their escalation, the controls in place

to prevent the event from occurring, and the mitigation measures in place to limit
the business impact. The application of bowtie analysis can be helpful to this study

to assess the risk to an organization’s workforce specifically local food businesses

during the COVID-19 pandemic in a relatively straightforward manner (Sneddon,

2022).
 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Related Studies

This chapter presents number of studies which are related literature of small

businesses manage customer risks and uncertainties during the pandemic.

The study was conducted by utilizing existing data from some of the

businesses internationally. This study fills the research gap by defining the many

types of uncertainty, their antecedents and effects, the coping mechanisms

employed to lessen their influence, and the implications of these activities, using a

comprehensive analysis of the international business literature, Sharma, P.,

Leung, T. Y., Kingshott, R. P., Davcik, N. S., & Cardinali, S. (2020). The authors

also examine the corporations' responses and repercussions using instances from

the present Covid-19 situation. The report finishes with several implications for

international business executives as well as research directions.

The research has an improvised continuity management strategy to

continue doing business, although in a reduced volume, by having their staff work

remotely while practicing social distancing or self-isolation. In addition, they have

prioritized the safety and continuous engagement of the people. Thus, this paper

highlights practical procedures that will enable businesses to effectively respond

to unexpected disruptions during a major outbreak from accounting and business

management perspectives. The research is based on theoretical methodology

through the analysis of several articles and survey results from different research.
Hence, it will be helpful in our study as an effective response during uncertainties

in pandemic. Alao, B. B., & Gbolagade, O. L. (2020).

Hohenstein, N. O. (2022) stated that the International Journal of Logistics

Management. The COVID-19 pandemic's massive impact highlights the critical

significance of supply chain risk management (SCRM) in achieving and

maintaining corporate performance, competitiveness, and survival in the "new

normal." The goal of this paper is to look at how the COVID-19 pandemic has

affected and will continue to affect supply chains (SCs), which SCRM approaches

have proven effective, and how logistics service providers (LSPs) have used what

they've learned to improve their SCRM practices and resilience in order to better

prepare for the next major disruption. This research demonstrates that robustness

and agility improve business performance, while learning from experience is critical

for redesigning an SCRM architecture in the event of an acute disruption. This

study is well-suited to this research since it is one of the first to provide

comprehensive, empirical, and practically applicable insights regarding the

influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on business management and employee

relationships. These new findings provide new study prospects. This research

examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, combining an extensive literature

analysis with a multiple-case study to see how they dealt with the pandemic's

impact so far.

This study used analytical and empirical research methodology that is

suitable in applying a holistic view to risk management, with a holistic view of risks,

we can easily find tools to help manage the risks by mitigating their impact in the
businesses, Settembre-Blundo, D., González-Sánchez, R., Medina-Salgado, S., &

García-Muiña, F. E. (2021). With the conceptual model proposed in this paper,

based on a systematic review of the literature, it is possible to integrate both the

strategic and technical operational aspects of risk. Since the study is also

considering the pandemic (Covid-19), we can get some ideas on taking the Covid-

19 pandemic as the disruptive element. Because of the pandemic, many

businesses have changed their risk perception methods and that is why we are

conducting this research to know how local food businesses survived in

occurrence of risk factors brought by the pandemic. And also, this study offers a

framework for the management of business, competitive and systemic risks that

could be helpful to researchers in conducting the study and in measuring the

company's level of sustainability during uncertain times like pandemic by using risk

management.

According to Sneddon, J. (2022), Bowties analysis is a method for

assessing operational risk, provides a clear visual representation of the

connections between the causes of business disruptions, their escalation, the

controls in place to prevent the event from happening, and the mitigation measures

in place to limit the business impact. This study will help to address the problem of

managing the uncertainties by analyzing the risk to an organization's workforce

during the COVID-19 pandemic in a reasonably simple manner, as opposed to its

more conventional use in high-hazard industries. Bowtie analysis can map hazards

to worker safety, identify and assess the safeguarding in place to prevent or

mitigate distinct scenarios, and easily show any weaknesses or non-conformances

using a graphical representation.

 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Research Design

The research approach that the researchers will use is the descriptive

qualitative research design to assess how uncertainties affects the sustainability

of the selected local businesses and how they managed those uncertainties based

on their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. "A descriptive study attempts

systematically to describe a situation, problem, phenomenon, service or program,

or provides information about, say, the living conditions of a community, or

describes attitudes towards an issue” (Kumar, 2011).

Participants of the Study

The researchers consider the 15 owners of the local food business of

Valencia City, Bukidnon, the respondents of the study.

Sampling Procedure

In order to collect data, the researchers will utilize purposive method.

Purposive method is a non-probability sampling technique where the researchers

choose respondents that could surely correspond to the objectives and questions

of the study.

Research Instruments

The researchers will use survey questionnaires with Likert scale and open-

ended questions that will serve as the source tool and evidence to prove that the
data that will be gathered is honest. The researchers will personally distribute the

questionnaires with the locale respondents that are business owners of different

local food business that were affected by the pandemic. With the help of these

survey questionnaires, the researchers will be able to formulate and derive with

satisfying conclusion.

Data Gathering Procedure

This study will be conducted during the second semester of the school year

2021- 2022. The researchers will create interview script and distribute those

questionnaires to the 15 selected respondents of different local businesses in

Valencia City, Bukidnon. The questionnaires were comprised of two questions

regarding the uncertainty, risk and sustainability of local businesses during the

pandemic. The distribution of survey questionnaires will be done personally by the

researchers after given the permission from the research adviser. The retrieval of

data will immediately be done after the data gathered from the answered

questionnaires.

Data Analysis

Content analysis will be used to analyze the data for this study which will be

gathered from the survey questionnaires. According to Moore & McCabe (2005),

this is the type of research whereby data gathered is categorized in themes and

sub-themes, so as to be able to be comparable. A main advantage of content

analysis is that it helps in data collected being reduced and simplified, while at the

same time producing results that may then measure using quantitative techniques.
 REFERENCES

Alao, B. B., & Gbolagade, O. L. (2020). Coronavirus pandemic and business

disruption: The consideration of accounting roles in business revival. International

Journal of Academic Multidisciplinary Research.

Hohenstein, N. O. (2022). Supply chain risk management in the COVID-19

pandemic: strategies and empirical lessons for improving global logistics service

providers’ performance. The International Journal of Logistics Management

https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-02-2021-0109

Kumar, R. (2011) “Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guide for

Beginners.” Sage Publications: 3rd Ed. Pp-334.

Langkos, Spyros. (2014). CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

Data collection method and Research tools. 10.13140/2.1.3023.1369.

Settembre-Blundo, D., González-Sánchez, R., Medina-Salgado, S., &

García-Muiña, F. E. (2021). Flexibility and resilience in corporate decision making:

A new sustainability- based risk management system in uncertain times. Global

Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 22(2), 107-132.

Sharma, P., Leung, T. Y., Kingshott, R. P., Davcik, N. S., & Cardinali, S.

(2020). Managing uncertainty during a global pandemic: An international business

perspective. Journal of business research, 116, 188-192.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.05.026.
 Sneddon, J. (2022). Pandemic risk management; protecting people while

ensuring business continuity. Process Safety Progress, 41(1), 8-13.

https://doi.org/10.1002/prs.12302.

Verbano, C., & Venturini, K. (2013). Managing risks in SMEs: A literature

review and research agenda. Journal of technology management & innovation,

8(3), 186-197. http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-27242013000400017

APPENDICES
 CENTRAL MINDANAO
UNIVERSITY
University Town, Musuan, Maramag, Bukidnon
College of Business and Management
Department of Accountancy

REQUEST LETTERS AND INFORMED CONSENT

FORMS

Baylon, Khert Jean M. Case,

Devanhy Jean D. Gamil,
Kristine Niña Clair P.
Mangubat, Steve
. Ryan O.
Sujitado, Phillip A. Valmores,
Dian Mae B.

BSMA-2
GEC 15 – Purposive Communication

MRS. DANNA KARYL JANE TALDE

Instructor

May 2022
 CENTRAL MINDANAO UNIVERSITY
University Town, Musuan, Maramag, Bukidnon
College of Business and Management
Department of Office Administration

May 4, 2022

Dear Ma’am/Sir:

Good day!

We, the Bachelor of Science in Accountancy students of Central Mindanao University,

are tasked to conduct research as one of our requirements in the subject Purposive
Communication (GEC 15). The purpose of this study is to collect data as to how local
food businesses in Valencia City, Bukidnon manage customer risks and uncertainties
during the pandemic.

For the accessibility of this research, we would like to take this opportunity to have an
interview script with the owners of the local food businesses. The questionnaires will help
the researchers identify how they manage it. We hope you can spare us time to participate
at your most convenient time. Rest assured that all information obtained from the
questionnaires will be treated with utmost confidentiality and will be used only for this
project. The giving of questionnaires will be conducted on May 10, 2022, at your most
convenient time. Should you be interested to participate in our interview project, please
contact us through mobile number (09269002653) or email (kristinegamil@gmail.com).

We look forward to your favorable response to our request. Thank you very much and
God bless.

Respectfully yours,
KHERT JEAN M. BAYLON

DEVANHY JEAN D. CASE

KRISTINE NIÑA CLAIR S. GAMIL

STEVE RYAN O. MANGUBAT

PHILLIP A. SUJITADO

DIAN MAE B. VALMORES

Noted by:

MRS. DANNA KARYL JANE TALDE

GEC 15 Instructor
 CENTRAL MINDANAO UNIVERSITY
University Town, Musuan, Maramag, Bukidnon
College of Business and Management
Department of Office Administration

I, , have read and understood the purpose and mode of the interview.

I agree to the following terms:

 I understand that even if I agree to participate now, I can refuse any time to answerany
question without any consequences.

 I will answer the questions honestly and appropriately.

 All information I provide for this interview will be treated confidentially.

 I have the right to ask questions regarding of the study.

 The signed consent forms and personal information I provided will be retained by the
researcher who can access the details.

 Under freedom of information legalization, I am entitled to access the information Ihave

provided at any time while it is in storage as specified above.

 I voluntarily agree to participate in the research of the Purposive Communication classof

Central Mindanao University, Musuan, Bukidnon.

Name of Participant Signature Date

 Managing Customer Risks and Uncertainties During Pandemic: A Local Food
Business Perspective in Valencia City, Bukidnon

Name (Optional):

Part I.

Please answer the following statements and put check in the box according whether
you agree or disagree.

Agree Disagree

1. The profit of our business is higher during

pandemic.
2. The liabilities of our business are lower during
Pandemic.
3. Pandemic helps our business grow.
4. We gain a lot more customers during the pandemic.
5. The performance of the business drops drastically
during the pandemic.
6. Experienced a financial downfall during pandemic.
7. We encountered strict protocols in our business
During pandemic.
8. We always close our business during pandemic.

Part II.

1. How did you sustain your business during the pandemic in terms of customer risksand
uncertainties?
2. Did your business incorporate strategies in managing customer risks and
uncertainties? What are these strategies?

3. How do customer risks and uncertainties affect the sustainability of the business?