Supply Chain Fundamental Rethinking

A fractured Supply Chain has left many of us revisit the assumptions on which the Supply Chains were built over the past 2-3 decades. As I also mentioned in my previous article, post WWII and more recently with formation of WTO led to an opportunity which was leveraged by Supply Chains to spread globally. Efficient Supply Chains which were able to deliver the cost arbitrage were preferred over non cost arbitrage Supply Chains. Come 2020, Covid 19 and the natural tendency central to human evolution emerged as a central theme - "One cares first for oneself before one cares for the other". At a nation level this held true. Probably was the first trigger for the Supply Chains to reassess its assumption. But as it happens in humans so it happened with Supply Chains. One tried to do the same of what worked in the past thinking that the current situation is just an outlier and will normalize soon.It took almost couple of years to realize that Supply Chain which are global & cost...

For a decade or more the world of Business and Supply Chain has been acclimatizing itself with the VUCA world. VUCA being an acronym for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex & Ambiguous. Supply Chain strategies & operations have always been anchored around VUCA. As has been abundantly proven since the onset of 2016 Trade war between US & China followed by the Pandemic and more recently the military operation of Russia in Ukraine, the world is not a VUCA world anymore. Rather is has passed that stage of VUCA to represent a new world reality of future. I think FICA   is the way to perceive & act on the future order of Supply Chain. FICA for me is Fragile, Intricate, Chaotic & Anxious F - Fragile - It is more than abundantly proven in the recent past that Supply Chains have been found to be Fragile. I shall explain this in a minute with an example. In late 70s and early 80s the world found (due to organizations like WTO) that there can be an opportunity for a global Suppl...