PERSPECTIVES

A Way Forward for Building Resilient Supply Chains

2020-05-06

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a lack of preparedness across the global supply chain to a variety of business disruptions. Here are three concrete actions your organization should consider to reinforce supply chain resilience in the event of future supply shocks.

Many companies worldwide have ignored the conventional wisdom of not putting all eggs in one basket when building their global supply chains. At the altar of cost efficiency, the goal of immunizing supply shocks in adverse events through diversification of supplier bases has been sacrificed time and again.

But the massive disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic across industries that are excessively dependent on their suppliers in regions affected, is pushing companies to start rethinking and re-sculpting their supply chains. Against this backdrop we recommend three steps to help companies to move further:

  1. Embrace risk management.

  2. Accelerate digital transformation.

  3. Gradually diversify their supplier bases.

Premankur Roy Paladhi, Industry Solutions Group Lead within Cognizant’s Retail, Consumer Goods, Travel and Hospitality Practice in the UK&I, contributed to this article.

To learn more, visit the Supply Chain Management section of our website, or for additional insights and updates see our COVID-19 resources page.

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