COVID-19 Diaries: Rethinking global supply chains

I had a conversation the other day with a retired professor of supply chain management who was hunkered down in a vacation home on an island on a lake. Like his neighbors, he was hoping no one else decided to hunker down in the same neighborhood.

One of the things we discussed is how supply chains are going to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic once it’s over. Our premise is that whatever plans most companies had in place as recently as say January or even February went up in smoke two weeks ago as the country began to lock down.

As Mike Tyson once famously said: Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Supply chain managers across the globe got punched in the mouth. But there will be re-assessments, rewriting of risk management playbooks, lots of second guessing and probably a hundred or so Masters and Ph.D. thesis.

In the meantime, I came across an insightful article from the MIT Sloan Management Review by Willy Shih, a professor of management at the Harvard Business School. Click here - in these very difficult times, Sloan has been opening up its paywall.

I’d love to hear how COVID-19 is impacting your supply chains. You can reach me at [email protected]. In the meantime, enjoy the read.

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