Supply and demand swings shifted flexibility and visibility from nice-to-have capabilities to must-haves.
Historical data became all but useless to supply chains navigating through uncertain conditions during the pandemic. Forecasting was futile, and the focus quickly pivoted to agility.
“There’s no way to forecast this,” Executive Vice President of the Association for Supply Chain Management Peter Bolstorff said in March. Months later, Unilever Chief Supply Chain Officer Marc Engel declared, “Agility does trump forecast[ing].”
Two keys to agility are visibility and diversification. But those keys were not immediately accessible to all businesses. Industries are learning lessons during the pandemic, and companies want to be ready, should a disruption of this size occur again.
Read the articles below to take a look at how firms maximized agility, while others struggled with visibility — and what supply chains across industries can do to improve resiliency.
