What started out as a health concern in a province in China has quickly turned into a nightmare for the entire world. Border restrictions, lockdowns, and community quarantines have limited and disrupted international supply chain and trade. Until today, the long-term and large-scale effects of the pandemic remain unclear. The only thing certain is that the coronavirus pandemic served as a wake-up call to every industry.

To quote the World Economic Forum, the pandemic has highlighted the need to “react, adapt, and set-up crisis management mechanisms”. With the world slowly easing into the new normal, various industries have now shifted into the recovery phase.

The Supply Chain Management function is among the key functions that has been actively preparing for what lies beyond the COVID pandemic.

To help you get a full grasp of the situation and to guide you in making adjustments in your organisation, we at The Supply Advisory prepared an “Expert Round-up”. The topic focuses on how Supply Chain Leaders in Chemical space are managing their Supply Planning piece in alignment with the overall post pandemic recovery strategy. 

We got in touch with three brilliant Supply Chain Leaders, all of who come from Chemical (and related) companies yet cater to very different industries; the Agro Industry, Textile Industry and Transportation Industry. We asked them:

• What are the top 3 tips you would give to Supply Chain Managers or Planning Professionals to help them effectively strategize and execute the Supply Planning Piece as part of the recovery journey?

Here are their tips: 

Rachel Stenson Bugnon

Head Regional Supply Operations – APAC and China 

Syngenta Asia Pacific

1. Embed supply chain resilience: you are only as good as the weakest link in the supply chain therefore risk management focused on ‘what if’ scenario planning is key.  Ensure you have multiple sources available which balance cost & responsiveness. Supplier Relationship management is another critical component and strong partnerships should be built over time based on win-win outcomes. In a crisis, this means you will be a customer of choice for your suppliers.

2. Focus on people’s capabilities & mindset: Continually review what capabilities are needed for the future & build these early. Empower local teams and embed an entrepreneurial spirit to find solutions even when faced with apparently insurmountable tasks. Act quickly & learn with each cycle, the world will have moved on while you strive for 100% perfection.

3. Have a long term strategy & short term agility: Be clear on your direction and invest in platforms that enable end-to-end visibility, efficiency and effectiveness. In parallel, build agility that allows the organisation to continually review and adapt to the local situation.

Chun Hao Lok

Global Supply Chain Director 

Huntsman Textile Effects

Manage-Assess-Prepare

1. Manage the immediate short term. Supply chain leaders must put in a process to quickly re-balance the demand and supply situation. Establish a minimum weekly forum between the Commercial and Supply Chain teams to address the changing short term demand while proactively managing the inventory on hand to better optimize the business’ cash flow by reviewing lead-times, safety stocks and all planning parameters, and working closely with the supply points to improve utilization of assets.

2. Assess the mid-term impact to the business. The post-pandemic marketplace will be a vastly different one, which may mean a different route-to-market strategy, portfolio optimization needs, end-user segments changes, customer segmentation and differentiation strategy. Supply Chain leaders must speak to their Commercial and Marketing colleagues more than ever, to understand what these changes mean to their supply chain, and enable earlier devising and strategizing to support the business through the changes.

3. Prepare for the long-term future. The market recovery will come, albeit in a different shape or form, and when that happens, businesses that are first off the blocks to reach their customers will gain share the quickest. Therefore, it is important that Supply chain leaders continue to prepare their supply chains with the agility and flexibility needed to cope with sudden demand changes. Keep lead-times flexible, diversify sources of supply, go into flexible partnerships with your suppliers. And not forgetting to continue to invest in process and people capabilities for the future, particularly in analytics to help deal with the increasing ambiguity of the future marketplace.

Carlo Rovea 

Global Supply Chain and Procurement Director

Infineum Singapore LLP

1. Start from your customers and their experience, building trust through transparency, regular and targeted engagements. In return, your key customers might be increasingly willing to work collaboratively with you on more transparent planning, which these days are extremely valuable as both supply and demand are so volatile.

2. Transform your planning, execution and risk mitigation processes to gain resilience and agility. Modernizing, redesigning and digitalizing your processes and capabilities can give you the agility and resilience you need to respond to the changing demands of your customers and to absorb other external (but also internal) perturbation across your end to end supply chain. Invest in organization capabilities, surrounding yourself with people who have the right skills and behaviors to help you deliver both your operational agenda and your transformational one; nurture cognitive diversity, digital dexterity, empathy, curiosity, business acumen, constructive challenge and empowerment across your organization.

3. Act as a business leader as opposed to an operational leader. Your ultimate objective is to add value to your business, determined by a tangible impact on your earnings and on your customers’ experience. Measure the success and effectiveness of your operations and teams against financial and other business targets.

The Supply Chain function is known to be dynamic and as companies evolve through these challenging times, we hope the Supply Chain professionals will benefit from these valuable insights.

A special thanks to Rachel Stenson Bugnon, Chun Hao Lok and Carlo Rovea who are taking time out of their busy schedules to support this fraternity.

Ananya Sinha Roy is the Director at The Supply Advisory (a division of Datasearch Consulting), a leading executive recruitment firm specialising in Procurement & Supply Chain.

You can view the The Supply Advisory website or contact them directly at info@supplyadvisory.com for a more detailed discussion.