SUPPLY CHAIN INDUSTRY IN U.S. DURING THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC
PANDEMIC PANTRIES
Consumers around the world are actively stockpiling emergency supplies from the day WHO declared the Corona-virus as a pandemic outbreak. With this situation, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented increase in sales of essential commodities by $8.5 billion during the two weeks lockdown in March-2020.
IS IT TIME FOR SUPPLY CHAINS TO RETHINK THEIR STRATEGIES?
To ensure the community continues to thrive without being disproportionately affected by catastrophes in the future, enabling the Supply Chain Industry with AI can bring about transformations.The Institute for Supply Management released a survey in the 2nd week of March, amidst the COVID-19 lockdown in the U.S. According to the report, nearly 75 percent of companies confirmed supply chain disruptions in some capacity due to coronavirus-related transport restrictions.
ENDURING MARKET DYNAMICS
Did you know commodities sales in the U.S. increased by $8.5 billion during the two weeks of lockdown in March 2020?
Yes, Consumer buying behavior is changing drastically as a result of COVID-19 — what people buy, where they buy from, how they buy, how much they buy, and how often they buy.
Consumers around the world are actively stockpiling emergency supplies from the day WHO declared the corona-virus as a pandemic outbreak. Consumers are hoarding emergency items labelled “Pandemic Pantries,” such as basic food items including canned goods, our, sugar, bottled water, medical kits, etc. This unprecedented situation will have lasting effects with a significant impact on businesses and the economy across the globe.
With this situation, we are also witnessing a drastic change in consumer behavior towards in-store and online buying.
CHALLENGING TIMES — RETAIL & CPG:
The Retail & CPG sector has an already overstretched and complex supply chain. Consumer’s panic buying behavior during the Global crisis makes it difficult for CPG companies to supply products as per demand. Companies in these sectors are forced to seriously reconsider their tactics and proficiency in the mentioned areas:
QUARANTINE IMPLICATION — CONSUMER BEHAVIOR COMPARISON
Retail and CPG companies must leverage available data sources and predictive models to effectively anticipate & react to potential supply chain disruptions. They must stay on top of the changing consumption behavior and react to fluctuations in demand levels with speed and scale.
RE-INVENTING THE SUPPLY CHAIN WITH AI:
Supply chain companies can alleviate some of the COVID-19 impacts with effective forecasting by leveraging data science platforms & predictive supply chain models as mentioned below:
“Companies would see a sustained surge in consumer demand, during the coronavirus crisis and well beyond recovery. This demand will primarily be driven by consumer sentiment to ensure that they are well stocked on basic necessities during times of crisis. In order to full this demand it is imperative that manufacturing companies control the quality and full the retail channels, both brick and mortar and e-commerce, in a streamlined manner. AI, Analytics and Optimization are key to ensure that this streamlining of manufacturing and distribution happens in the supply chain” — Eron Kar, VP of Supply Chain Analytics -Affine
VOLATILE MARKET?
TIME TO RE-STRATEGIZE:
To ensure that the community continues to thrive without being disproportionately affected by catastrophes in the future, enabling the Supply Chain Industry with AI can bring about transformations in:
DEVELOPING AN ECOSYSTEM FOCUSED ON CONSUMER NEEDS
Moving from a reactive supply chain to proactively managing supply and demand will help companies to stay on top of changing consumer behaviour & market fluctuations. Time to look out for innovative ways to aid consumer access with minimal complications.
This report is made by Pavan Patil, Marketing Manager -Affine & Alan Sebastian, Content Writer -Affine.
