
COVID-19: Repurpose your supply chain for resilience
April 14, 2020
April 14, 2020
COVID-19 is disrupting supply chains like few crises have before. Business leaders are required to act quickly to protect and support their workers and sustain the operations that are vital lifelines for their customers and communities. There is an urgent need to mobilize a rapid response and build greater responsiveness and resilience into supply chains.
The crisis is also a test of corporate values and purpose. It illustrates how critical supply chains are on a humanitarian level. Consumers, investors, governments and communities may ultimately judge companies on how they respond to this period of disruption.
The solution? To repurpose and reshape supply chains for the future by increasing both resilience and responsibility. This will help communities manage the short-term crisis and provide businesses with the greater resilience and customer-centricity that will be vital to growth as economies rebound.
To combine resilience and responsibility in supply chains, we recommend companies use their rapid-response command centers to address seven priorities:
COVID-19 has put both the core and extended supply chain workforce in an unfamiliar, fast-changing, and often highly stressful environment. They need their leadership’s support to keep well and stay productive. Our recommendations include:
Businesses have a vital role to play in helping societies manage the COVID-19 crisis. In so doing, both they and the communities they serve can come out stronger the other side. Our recommendations include:
Businesses can help societies both directly, by supporting immediate healthcare needs, and indirectly, by supporting local communities across their supply chains. Our recommendations include:
The supply-side challenges created by this pandemic highlight the need for a deeper understanding of both known and unknown risks to the supply base. They also amplify the importance of predictive modelling and applied intelligence. Our recommendations include:
Today’s digital platforms, analytics and automation capabilities enable supply chain leaders to quickly get visibility across the supply chain and respond to COVID-19 with speed, certainty and safety. Our recommendations include:
This crisis is an opportunity for businesses to uncover previously hidden weaknesses in their supply chains and ensure they come through stronger than before. Our recommendations include:
As the immediate emergency passes and economies rebound, businesses have a unique opportunity to create intelligent supply chains with a redoubled focus on agility, resilience, social responsibility and human-centric needs. Our recommendations include:
These seven priorities, and the practical actions we recommend for each, will help companies respond to extraordinary disruption in the most effective way, both now and in the years to come. The primary objective is to reshape for the future by building greater agility, responsiveness, and resilience right across the supply chain. But it is essential to complement this with purpose and responsibility in response protocols and supply chain strategies. This combination of resilience and responsibility will not only help societies manage the challenges of COVID-19, but also create a foundation for future competitive advantage and business growth.
Companies that can do all this with a focus on responsibility will be differentiated as leaders in the future.