COVID-19 has been an extraordinary experience in our lifetimes – and has quickly exposed the weaknesses in supply chains. In a matter of weeks, the resulting supply and demand shocks had and continue to have a globally disruptive impact to organizations and the people they serve. 

While no event in modern times has demonstrated the impact of external disruption more clearly than COVID-19, it is not the core topic of this whitepaper. The pandemic does perfectly uncover the imperfections of traditional supply chain models in the face of change. Most supply chains have been designed with cost efficiency in mind. But just-in-time and lean inventory strategies have resulted in organizations struggling to adapt as disruptions become more frequent and forceful. This trend is likely to accelerate, due to the continued adverse human footprint on the planet, growing resource scarcity, and the interdependence of our processes and our reliance on digitization.