As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the world, the existence of disruptions in demand and supply have become more severe, conducted by containment measures taken by countries and affecting different sectors around the world. Although businesses and workplaces are restarting activities in some countries, with containment measures gradually being lifted, overall consumer demand is expected to remain low, also determined by the loss of jobs and income. Therefore, the scale of the impact on supply chains exceeded anything most companies had anticipated. This study aims to understand how companies were affected and identify some lessons learned about their vulnerabilities and the possible ways to address them in the long term. On the other hand, it is intended to reveal some of the impacts of COVID-19 and make some practical suggestions that can help in political and operational decisions to strengthen and build additional resilience in supply chains in the future.
TopThe Risk For Supply Chains
According to (S. Y. Ponomarov, 2012), from the beginning of the 2000s onwards, “as a result of globalization of supply chains, the use of outsourcing, the use of lean methodologies, attacks terrorists committed and of various threats”, the theme of risk management in the supply chain wins relevance. However, according to the available literature, the concepts of management and management of risks are still under construction.
On the other hand, some authors have established indications that suggest that the term risk management “relates to coordination between members of a supply chain in order to reduce the
vulnerability throughout the chain” (Jüttner & Maklan, 2011; Jüttner, Peck, & Christopher, 2003). Thus, management would be how the chain is strategically organized to manage risks, referring to its architecture and action planning, in order to avoid unwanted situations, while management is intrinsically linked to the structure and processes within the chain. Also according to (Jüttner et al., 2003), a risk management model is based on four phases, namely the identification of risk sources, risk assessment, strategy proposition and risk mitigation. (Tummala & Schoenherr, 2011) propose in their study the “Supply Chain Risk Management Process (SCRMP)”, a model composed of three phases and the treatment of risks effectively and efficiently, as described below: