The Global Supply Chain Chaos: Unveiling the Hidden Vulnerabilities

Often times, we take our online orders and deliveries for granted. We expect the two day shipping because it has grown more common and been very predictable. We've grown accustomed to a well run supply chain without even thinking about it. But when the entire world goes through an event that completely shifts consumer behavior, it threatens to throw everything into chaos. I spoke with the N's Holstebrove, President of Front Row on how they've faced the global supply chain challenges head on. So let's go back to pre pandemic. Right? And just talk about doing, there's a holistic, very sort of, top level analysis of the global supply chain as a whole. Very predictable. Right? Because you know every industry, every market, whether regional or whatever product is seasonal, right? So if you're an agent in a market that does part A, or part B, probably C in region one, two, and three, chances are that it's relatively easy to predict what your capacity needs to be, both in terms of you know, the products needed, throughput of manufacturing, as well as the capacity required to get the product from A to B simply because most marketplaces operate with seasonality and human intelligence and algorithm and what, data analysis, It's really not that hot with a little bit of buffer to get it right year over year over year, right? And you can incorporate growth, historical performance and what have you. Peace of cake. An unlikely opportunity that was presented last year was that the whole planet was experiencing the same phenomena. It was a leveling of the playing field, and that provided some real opportunities for those who recognized it. So fast forward to March twenty twenty, global pandemic, right? This sort of like once in a lifetime knock on wood, experience occurs whereby the entire planet is struck by the exact same phenomenon and the reaction is also completely uniform, right? Every every country, every society essentially reacts the same way. And patterns that you know we use to operate in and under changes overnight. So people used to go to work, work in an office, in a warehouse, wherever they worked, did the same thing day in, day out, more or less, and all of that more or less changes everywhere instantly. Consumer habits completely changed overnight. Such a large move all at once was a very big challenge to the supply chain. So now you have this new sort of sense of gravity in the world economy where the consumer behavior has changed overnight. And death is of such a massive impact to the supply chain that it just can't keep up. So at a granular level, right? You know, I've started working from home, did it for a year and a half, following the pattern of my neighbor who followed the pattern of their neighbor, everybody was sitting in their home office suddenly. And if you take that example to a level of granularity even further, you know, because they are now working from home every day they buy more groceries than they normally would because now they're doing three meals a day. They're probably drinking more coffee. Some of them are going crazy being at home, so they decide to get a dog. In fact, I know for a fact that getting a dog became a real challenge because everybody wanted one. From supply chain issue. That means everybody wants dark food and, you know, dark leashes and the demand of those products related to a certain conduct that just happens so instantly at the same time all over the world drives demand on specific products that was completely unpredictable. And the same thing of course happens in the home office what needs for computers, headsets, what have you to an extent that's just never been experienced before. And then there's all these sort of sub derivatives, people get more time on their hands, to do car shopping, the intention of getting that new truck that they've been thinking about for years, but never got to because they're always working, commuting or whatever. And now they go out and actually buy that truck. At times, the supply chain can seem infinite. There isn't a limit on how many packages you can send through overnight delivery. But there are only so many planes and cargo ships. When the supply chain reaches a peak demand, it presents a new challenge entirely. Most consumers, meaning the ones that are not neighbors to the factory in which the product is built, are relying on a very lubricated logistics network that brings products from A to B. Well, guess what? There you have some capacity issues as well, right? There are only so many containerships in the world. There are only so many trains, planes, and automobiles in the world that have the freight capacity needed to bring these products from where they're built to where they're used. For more thought leadership from the experts at front row, head to market scale dot com today to stay up to date with the latest.