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Sustainability of supply chains in Supply chains

in the wake of
the wake of the coronavirus the coronavirus

(COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2)
pandemic: lessons and trends 117
Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour and Received 5 May 2020
Revised 11 May 2020
Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour Accepted 13 May 2020
University of Lincoln, Lincoln International Business School, Lincoln, UK and
Montpellier Business School, Montpellier, France, and
Martin Hingley, Eliseo Luis Vilalta-Perdomo, Gary Ramsden and
David Twigg
University of Lincoln, Lincoln International Business School, Lincoln, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this article is to address the prioritisation and focus of supply chain managers
subsequent to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)/severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
(SARS-CoV-2) and the great lockdown of 2020.
Design/methodology/approach – In this article, concepts and trends on resilient and sustainable supply
chains are systematized. Main trends in sustainability of supply chains in the wake of COVID-19 are presented.
Findings – Guidelines on building smarter and more resilient supply chains are provided and future
tendencies, which includes the increase of a sustainable consumption perspective, are highlighted.
Originality/value – This is a conceptual article blended with a practical approach aiming to propose
guidelines for managers and scholars on how to address supply chain management challenges after the
coronavirus pandemic.
Keywords Coronavirus, COVID-19, Resilience, Supply chain management, Sustainable consumption
Paper type Viewpoint

1. Introduction
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has brought to light the fact that supply chains
function as the veins of our economy and society (Ivanov, 2020). Societies and businesses
across the world have faced unprecedented challenges due to the disruptions that the
coronavirus outbreak, and the consequent great lockdown, have caused. Individuals, for
instance, have dealt with a range of changes in their lives, from self-isolation to difficulties
stocking up on essentials. Some businesses, mainly from the hospitality sector, have failed to
survive because of the slowdown in trade, while other businesses have had to fight hard to
supply the population’s needs, including farms, retailers, third-party logistics and the
members of healthcare sector supply chains.

© Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour, Martin Hingley, Eliseo Luis
Vilalta-Perdomo, Gary Ramsden and David Twigg. Published in Modern Supply Chain Research and
Applications. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative
Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create
derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full
attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at http:// Modern Supply Chain Research
creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode and Applications
Vol. 2 No. 3, 2020
The authors would like to thank the Resilient Lincolnshire initiative – Lincoln International Business pp. 117-122
School, University of Lincoln, UK. This article is inspired by the webinar “Sustainability of Supply Emerald Publishing Limited
2631-3871
Chains in the Wake of Covid-19”, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v551RqzaVxOT4. DOI 10.1108/MSCRA-05-2020-0011
MSCRA According the Regional Risks for Doing Business report from 2019, cybersecurity was
2,3 identified as the greatest threat to businesses (World Economic Forum, 2020). However,
pandemics, such as the coronavirus, are a significant source of external risk to the smooth
operation of supply chains. Moreover, this source of risk can destabilise supply chains,
leaving them unable to meet demand and satisfy customers’ requirements and needs.
Therefore, it is important to learn lessons from the disruptions caused by COVID-19 to build
smarter and more resilient supply chains. This article addresses what managers may
118 consider keeping supply chain alive due to COVID-19. This is a conceptual article blended
with a practical approach aiming to propose guidelines for managers and scholars on how to
address supply chain management challenges after the coronavirus pandemic.

2. Background
2.1 Principles for building resilience in supply chains
The design of a resilient supply chain requires the development of four principles
(Christopher and Peck, 2004; Kamalahmadi and Parast, 2016) called ECAC: Engineering,
Collaboration, Agility and Culture.
(1) Supply chain engineering
Mapping the structure of a supply chain, covering all of its members, including first and
second tier suppliers, channels of distribution and final consumers, is important in order to
identify likely bottlenecks that may restrict the flow, capacity and visibility of production.
Processes or suppliers that may compromise the delivery of products and services to
customers constitute potential bottlenecks; accordingly, the use of critical path and risk
register tools can help managers to perform the required map assessment of a
supply chain.
Procurement strategies play a critical role in building a resilient organisation because
decisions related to multiple or single sourcing and local or global sourcing are important to
ensure that a company can cope with internal and external variability and implement
contingency plans. Therefore, procurement managers must assess the risk management of
their suppliers in order to select and evaluate their current and future supply base.
Trade-offs between efficiency and redundancy do exist, and some slack in terms of
resources may be necessary to adapt supply chains for unpredictable changes. A decoupling
point is a compatible strategy to avoid keeping additional points of inventory throughout a
supply chain. In this context, the inclusion of merge-in-transit practices could increase the
flexibility of supply chains, without falling into excessive inventory costs.
(2) Supply chain collaboration
Working together is a central aspect of a resilient supply chain that aims to be adaptable and
flexible. Sharing information is the best way to increase visibility and reduce risks in a supply
chain. The purpose of collaboration in a supply chain is to create a common understanding of
the strategy of the supply chain, because when there is clear understanding, relations can
become meaningful. Therefore, sharing outputs from political, economic, social and
technological analysis (PEST forces) and risk assessment of demand, supply and
processes between members of a supply chain creates a community perspective.
Creating common targets between some members of a supply chain and organising video
calls and workshops to check progress and share projections are initiatives which can help
manage collaboration in supply chains.
(3) Supply chain agility
This principle is divided into two sections: visibility and velocity.
 Visibility is related to monitoring the flow of materials and information across a supply Supply chains
chain in order to ensure that procurement, production, delivery schedules and orders will be in the wake of
met. Collaborative planning and forecasting are also important to provide a clear shared view
of the processes within a supply chain. The use of portal software is useful for analysing
the coronavirus
real-time data and sharing information with suppliers, distributors and retailers to enable
collaboration, monitor processes, identify issues and adjust planning.
Velocity concerns reducing the “end-to-end” time taken for producing and delivering
products and services. Thus, value-stream mapping can help to identify activities or 119
processes that may be reduced or eliminated in order to improve the flow of materials.
Reduction of batch sizes, cellular layouts, platform-based products, versatile workforces and
equipment support flexibility and enable quick shifts in production if disruptions happen. In
addition, trace and track procurement, production, delivery orders by means of real-time
sharing of information concerning order flow help to develop contingency plans, calculate
inventory needs, change production orders and keep the upstream supply chain informed.
Digital technologies, such as cyber-physical systems, sensors, barcodes, Internet of things,
collaboration portals and cloud computing can enable both the visibility and the velocity of
supply chains.
(4) Supply chain risk management culture
Risk assessment management should be developed as part of the routine of a company and its
supply chain in order to build an ability to anticipate and respond to disruptions. Leadership
towards the creation of risk assessment teams would help firms to pursue this culture.
Collection and storage of data and information regarding past events would help to
systematize the lessons learnt over time and, in particular, after overcoming COVID-19. Big
data analytics and blockchain are means of gathering and recording information to be
analysed.
The journey towards building up resilience in supply chains requires a disciplined attitude
towards risk assessment, joint and common purposes between members and the pursuit of
flexible and efficient flows of materials and information.

3. Discussion
3.1 How to recover from COVID-19
Recovering and learning are capabilities that should be prioritised by companies that are
under pressure due to COVID-19. Recovering refers to the ability to restore activities to the
point they were before the disruption, while learning means the ability to improve activities
based on the results of a disruption (Ali et al., 2017).
The recovery process would require a reassessment of the structure of a supply chain in
terms of location, production capacity and management of the flow of materials and
information amongst the current members of the supply chain in order to identify pros and
cons and eventually to reconfigure the supply chain structure (Govindan et al., 2020).
Provision of resources would be necessary to implement actionable contingency plans.
Unquestionably, integration and collaboration between key members of a supply chain
would be crucial in order to establish a common target and to share both losses and future
gains to restore the foundations of the businesses.
Knowledge management is an important ability to develop in order to overcome
disruption. Gathering data by means of both formal group discussion and brainstorming
with key members of a supply chain to identify errors, bottlenecks, opportunities to innovate
and solutions that work is critical to managing continuity. Such a data gathering process may
benefit from the use of action review and retrospective review tools (Leask et al., 2008), as well
as project management documentation templates (Terzieva, 2014).
MSCRA Other strategies are also important to the knowledge management process, such as
2,3 education and formal training regarding the weaknesses identified during the group
discussion and brainstorming sessions and the use of project management software for
sharing information both within a company and across the supply chain (Terzieva, 2014).
After dealing with disruptions in supply chain, it is fundamental to ensure that the
three Ts for successful management of supply chains have been used. The 3Ts are time,
transparency and trust. Time means focussing only on adding value processes that
120 costumers are willing to pay for; transparency relates to the necessary levels of inventory and
costs of production which are reliable and fair for the joint planning of production and sales;
and trust is the consequence of collaborative working practices that enable the sharing of
gains and losses (Wilding, 2003).

4. Guidelines for managers and scholars on how to address supply chain

management challenges after the coronavirus pandemic
Taking into account the above factors, supply chain and logistics managers, as well as
policymakers and businesses in general, should pay attention to the following tendencies in
the aftermath of COVID-19.
Some supply chains should be given the spotlight as they are critical for society and
require specific attention from government, for example, pharmaceutical supply chains, in
particular those dependent on biodiversity, grocery retailers, logistics and transportation,
and the healthcare and safety sectors.
Society may reassess its decision-making processes regarding consumption patterns due
to isolation and changes in habits (resulting from the increased use of social media and chat
apps used to share items). According to EY Future Consumer Index, consumers behaviours
tend to change after COVID-19 crisis. A survey conducted by Ernst and Young shows that
34% of respondents would be willing for paying more for local products, 25% for trusted
brands and 23% for ethical products (Ernst and Young, 2020). Thus, a more sustainable
consumption model may arise (Sarkis et al., 2020), moving towards a sharing economy logic,
with implications for supply chains which deal with consumer goods. The use of services
provided by apps would be reinforced.
The notion of crowdsourcing has been highlighted; therefore, last mile logistics should be
developed further to meet the potential rise in demand.
The discussion of offshore production should be on the agenda of supply chain managers
with regard to the length and location of supply chains. Re-shoring is likely to be a hot topic
for governments, policymakers and supply chains managers around the world.
Logistics decisions involving modes of transport, warehousing, handling of materials and
packaging should be reassessed in order to seek even more efficient and agile solutions
(Choi, 2020). Digital (e.g. use of sensors, cyber-physical systems) and virtual (e.g. virtual
reality glasses) technologies would be vital to meeting the new requirements.
Procurement activity and in particular the importance of ensuring Right Quality should
not be lost in the race to provide goods and services in the Right Time at the Right Place
(Lysons and Farrington, 2016). Technical specifications and due diligence measures still
remain vital elements in the procurement process, ensuring that potential suppliers have the
necessary qualities to become a partner of government in its role as buyer.
Each sector faces a particular challenge. For example, the hospitality sector should invest
more in delivering life experiences, online services and connectivity to customers after the
isolation that people have faced, in order to provide high-value services. The hospitality
sector may shift the provision of services towards the virtualization business model.
E-commerce may grow even further due to an increase in the number of users; thus,
investing in efficient logistics, order fulfilment management and customer service
management may be a trend.
 More information systems and technologies, as well as automation systems, may be Supply chains
required by the manufacturing and service sectors, thus, there may be an increase in demand in the wake of
for such systems, as suggested by Govindan et al. (2020).
the coronavirus

5. Conclusion
The world is likely to see a more imbricated relation between geopolitics and supply chain
decision-making processes. For example, governments are likely to invest and regulate “key 121
supply chains”, such as pharmaceutical, personnel protective equipment and agri-food chains
in order to ensure national food security. This goes against long-term trends of governments’
policies of light touch, and simply putting their trust in key corporate supply chains to “do the
right thing”; and therefore, relying on big retailers’ and suppliers’ strong customer orientation
to keep supply chains moving. We may be entering a new age of localised/ regionalised
supply chains and government intervention once again to determine.
The role of intermediaries might also be reassessed as it is through them that the smallest
producers (micro- and small farmers) may coordinate their actions to produce deeper impact
in the provision, and end-consumers can shorten the supply chain by actively involved in
production/distribution systems (online delivery and/or community-supported agriculture).
Society, businesses and governments will all be transformed in the aftermath of the
coronavirus outbreak, and we hope, towards a more sustainable society (Sarkis et al., 2020);
thus, scholars and managers should attempt to consider this transformation through a
positive lens in order to improve supply chains and logistics management in order to provide
high value and even more outstanding services to society, since it has now been made
abundantly clear that supply chains are the veins of an economy.

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Corresponding author
Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour can be contacted at: [email protected]

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