Page 6 - Logistics News Oct Nov 2020

Thought Leadership

Reflecting on COVID-19’s impact

as we positively move forwards

By Dr Craig Voortman

The COVID-19 crisis affected us all on multiple levels – as businesses, as families, as individuals.

2020 HAS been one of the strangest years in our as our supply chain operations in real and often
lives. A small virus originating in China has become unimaginable ways. Life changed drastically and
a massive Black Swan, whose ominous wings almost ‘overnight’, and we were all exposed to our
have spread across the world, and temporarily personal, business and supply chain vulnerabilities.
or even permanently paralysed many business Supply chains supplying essential medical
operations, supply chain processes and even items were initially stretched beyond their limits
strained sociopolitical relationships across the at the beginning of the lockdown, even in more
globe – especially between China and the USA. sophisticated first-world nations like Italy, leaving
The relatively calm global economic seas have the end-customers grappling with the dangerous,
experienced unsettling churn and uneasiness and at times lethal, consequences of supply chain
prevails. failures. Essential food stuffs and pharmaceutical
We have come to realise globally how items quickly disappeared from shelves in many
potentially vulnerable we are as businesses and nations, only for shelves to remain empty for weeks
individuals to both information and disinformation and even months to come. Stock replenishment
– and how information dissemination and the was often slow and cumbersome. Retailers were
‘mass media’ instantly impact our daily lives as well exposed to costly obsolescence challenges,

4 October/November 2020 | Logistics News