Preparing for Black Friday 2026: strategies to sell more

Black Friday has ceased to be a strictly 24-hour promotional event and has become a true test of technological architecture, operational resilience, and risk management. To discuss how leading brands prepare for this peak moment without relying on improvisation, Skyone brought together market leaders and experts in the webinar "Black Friday Without Improvisation 2026".

Moderated by Roberto Arruda (CEVO of Skyone) and featuring Luciano Condé (Oracle), Cintia Gomes (BBM Logística), and Marcos Pasin (ADCOS), the debate provided profound insights into how the union of advance planning, cloud technology, artificial intelligence, and human alignment is the only sustainable way to transform peak demand into high profitability and customer loyalty.

1. The transition from "adventurer" to "bricklayer": the new profile of retail

One of the most striking pieces of data presented at the beginning of the conversation revealed that 49% of companies have uncertainties regarding risk during the peak of Black Friday. This statistic reflects a cultural shift in the management of Brazilian companies.

During the event, Luciano Condé addressed the evolution of executive posture in the country, which is moving away from the historically "adventurous" profile, characterized by last-minute reactions and dependence on improvisation, to consolidate into the "bricklayer". The bricklayer is the analytical manager who builds, brick by brick, a solid operational architecture, based on three indispensable pillars:

• Data: rigorous analysis of sales history to predict behaviors and volumes.
• Elasticity: the strategic use of cloud computing to scale resources according to real-time demand.
• Business partners: seamless and transparent integration with the entire ecosystem (ERPs, e-commerce, logistics, and payment gateways).
  

You may also be interested in: How Arcomix prepares its IT for Black Friday demand peaks

2. Planning that begins in September and extreme load testing

In the practice of retail focused on the end customer, improvisation in November is synonymous with a drop in sales and damage to reputation. Marcos Pasin (ADCOS) emphasized that preparation for Black Friday begins structurally in September, with a total focus on the customer journey and experience.

To ensure that the operation can withstand the high volatility of traffic, ADCOS conducts load tests simulating twice the volume recorded in the previous year. The goal is to guarantee 100% availability during peak times, eliminating bottlenecks in critical integrations with ecosystems such as VTEX, Mercado Libre, and internal management systems.

3. Risk management, cloud computing, and the difference between risk and uncertainty

In the architectural vision presented by Luciano Condé, there is a fundamental distinction in the business environment:

• Risk: an event with a calculable probability that can be mitigated through engineering and planning.
• Uncertainty: an unpredictable phenomenon that cannot be predicted using only traditional models.
  

A resilient cloud architecture works precisely by converting uncertainties into manageable risks. With auto-scaling and dynamic server allocation, the infrastructure absorbs abnormal traffic spikes without bringing down systems.

Furthermore, Condé drew attention to the "sunk cost fallacy," inwhichexecutives hesitate to migrate their legacy systems to the cloud for fear of parting with old investments in physical infrastructure, ultimately missing out on huge opportunities for scale and operational efficiency.

4. Cybersecurity and the "ballet" of logistics

Black Friday attracts not only shoppers, but also a high volume of digital threats and abnormal spikes in suspicious access. Cíntia Gomes (BBM Logística) emphasized that cybersecurity should be an ongoing priority within the organization, using active monitoring and Artificial Intelligence algorithms to protect the corporate environment against fraud and denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

From a logistics perspective, Cíntia described operational efficiency as a veritable "ballet of processes." The operation needs to be transparent to the end consumer, orchestrating yards, carriers, and tracking technology to ensure deadlines are met and clear communication is maintained from start to finish of the delivery.

5. People, artificial intelligence, and true resilience

Although automation and Artificial Intelligence play vital roles in gaining agility and rapid code development, the panel agreed that human logic remains irreplaceable. Trained and engaged personnel in real-time monitoring (War Room) are the last line of defense for complex decision-making during operations.

The concept of resilience was synthesized by Condé not only as the capacity to withstand loads, but as the ability of a system and an organization to absorb an impact, adapt, and quickly return to its normal state of operation.

6. Key recommendations from experts

Competition with foreign giants and the current level of consumer demand show that Brazilian companies that invest in infrastructure modernization, data governance, and process integration become highly competitive and ready to grow in any scenario.

Watch the full live stream on our YouTube channel and check out all the details of the debate with our experts! 

Written by Skyone