Digital? Local? Transparent? – Six truths of supply chains after Covid-19

Christina  Schabasser

doi:10.31039/ljss.2021.1.38

Authors

Christina Schabasser University of Applied Sciences Burgenland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31039/ljss.2021.1.38

Keywords:

Supply chain disruption, Covid-19 pandemic, conceptual model

Abstract

Supply chains were and always will be exposed to risks. The increasing complexity of today´s supply chains pose the greatest challenges to supply chain management. Disruptions of the supply chain caused by disasters (e.g., the Covid-19 pandemic) indicates that the inter-organizational interaction between purchasing, production and logistics on a mostly global level does not work as smoothly as assumed. Although, there were serious disasters with dire effects on global supply chains even before Covid-19, supply chains have hardly lost any of their complexity or gained in transparency. Therefore, it is important to address this issue with the utmost urgency to make supply chains more resilient. The article aims to answer the question how the supply chains of the future could look like. Six levers for restructuring or redesigning supply chains are presented in this paper, for example, higher safety stocks and a diversified supplier portfolio. Even if the supply chains known to us will not cease to exist, current practices will certainly be reassessed. A conceptual model and its visualization opportunities is used to illustrate how a supply chain is skipped out of balance. It forces the reader to think about solutions to stabilize supply chains, resulting in a new (extended or deeper) understanding of phenomena for interested people, supply chain managers, practitioners, and researchers in this field.

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