Inventory management in SMEs operating in Polish group purchasing organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 virus has hit the economy around the world. In Poland, SMEs have the greatest problems with doing business. Border blockades and the quarantine for enterprises in virtually all industries throughout Poland greatly complicated the supply systems and the inventory management process. Up to now, SMEs have acted in group purchasing organizations to improve their competitive position. This form of activity also positively affects their financial security. Therefore, in this paper, the inventory management among this group of companies during the COVID-19 pandemic was analyzed. The purpose of the paper was to show how inventory management strategies changed during the COVID-19 pandemic in SMEs operating in industry GPOs. The analysis was carried out on a group of 88 Polish commercial enterprises operating in purchasing groups. The research period covered the years 2017–2019 and March–June 2020. The research showed a change in inventory management strategy in SMEs during the pandemic time of COVID-19. For the first four months, managers of enterprises tried to pursue a conservative policy and to accumulate stocks in the event of a shortage of supplies. This article also presents the form of security that was applied for SMEs operating in group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to avoid forced downtime caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.