LESSONS FROM THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP.

• Author: Soni, Ramesh

For years, according to many experts, it was a question when, not if, we would face another pandemic (Taubenberger et al., 2007; Gates, 2015). COVID-19, the current pandemic, hit us in late 2019, exactly one hundred years after the last pandemic. But the world is quite different from what it was one hundred years ago. We are far more connected today than when the last pandemic hit us. We are far more globally mobile, our economy is interconnected, we have supply chains spanning the globe, we have information that travels instantaneously, and capital moves across the world with keystrokes on the computer. In such an environment, it was not a surprise that the COVID-19 pandemic enveloped the world very quickly and resulted into a chaos exceedingly fast. What ensued was an unprecedented level of disruptions in supply chain, locally as well as globally, in many sectors of the economy.

The importance of supply chain management became unquestionably evident during the current pandemic (Craighead, Ketchen, & Darby, 2020). Craighead et al. (2020) further point out that in spite our vast experiences with SCM disruptions due to natural disasters, manufactured disasters such as terroristic attacks, and port strikes, businesses were not sufficient to fully prepared "to effectively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the "Great Lockdown," and the tidal wave of disruptions" that ensued. This paper will discuss various causes of SCM disruptions that were experienced and why some of the countries (e.g., Australia) did not experience that same level of disruption; what lessons can be drawn; and the role of leadership during this pandemic.

In the next section we present a literature review, focusing on the disruptions that were experienced in various sectors of SCM. Following that, a review of leadership and other lessons drawn will be presented. The next section of the paper will present a discussion and conclusion. Finally, suggestion for future research would be presented in the last section.

SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTIONS

Popular literature is replete with examples of shortages that the consumers experienced early on during the current pandemic. Images related to toilet paper shortages are ingrained in the American psyche now. Television and newspaper reported fights erupting between shoppers for the last role of toilet paper on the store shelves or the images of empty store shelves, or videos of shoppers rolling out carts loaded with toilet paper with a bright smile on their face as if they have won a million-dollar lottery. Some of these shortages were due to inability of producers to switch to a different stream of product. Of course, another factor for panic buying was the rumor mills churning out disinformation such as to China not being able to ship out toilet papers due to port shutdown. The interesting fact is that only about 10% of toilet paper consumed by the users in the US arrive from China and India (Corkery and Maheshwari, 2020) and 90% of toilet paper is produced in the US by using US pulp for the US consumers (Bonior, 2020). The panic buying or the hoarding behavior is a part preparedness response that give a sense of security and comfort to the consumer (Kirk & Rifkin, 2020). The preparedness response is the usual cause of the milk, bread, and eggs disappearing from the grocery shelves before a winter storm hits or hurricane makes a landfall. Often, people stockpile these items as if the world may end in the extremely near future.US consumers were not unique in hoarding toilet paper rolls. A similar run-on toilet paper was observed in Australia, Japan, Singapore, U.K., and Hong Kong (Mao, 2020, Fu et al., 2021).

In India, at the onset of the COVID 19, consumers started hoarding wheat flour (India Today, 2020). Given that the variety of breads made from wheat flour (Naan, Roti/Chapati, Puri, etc.) is the staple food of the Indians. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Indigenous people started hoarding wheat flour just as the consumers in the USA were hoarding toilet paper rolls and cleaning suppliers. Furthermore, resulting from the initial "21-day lockdown," the country experienced a major disruption in the supply chain as "wholesale markets" were shut down. Additionally, "unseasonal rains" disrupted the wheat supply chain for the flour mills in India (India Today, 2020).

Consumers in Hong Kong (Low, Cheung, and Cheung, 2020) and China (Fu et al. 2021) demonstrated panic buying of rice during the pandemic. It is interesting to note that there were many factors at play when it came to the global supply chain of rice. Top exporters of rice--India and Vietnam--faced labor shortage due to pandemic and curbed exports (Tan, 2020). Yet, that is when many countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Taiwan, and China "boosted strategic food stockpiles" (Almeida and Murtaugh, 2020). So, not just consumers but even countries started hoarding by increasing their food stockpiles.

Going back to the case of toilet paper rolls, its consumption at US homes increased by about 40% as people were working from home. Concomitantly, as people stopped/reduced visiting restaurants, offices, hotels, etc. where they typically use larger rolls, the demand for commercial large rolls plummeted. As explained in the video produced by Business Insider (Narishkin, Cameron and Barranco, 2020), it is not easy to switch from making large rolls to small rolls as both types of rolls require "different input paper, packaging, and different machine configurations." Production capacity from large, commercial toilet rolls to small, cannot be easily repurposed for home-use toilet paper rolls. This imbalance between demand (home vs commercial) and production capacity caused a disruption in the supply chain, resulting in a heightened consumers' hoarding tendencies (Kirk & Rifkin, 2020).

Contrary to the case of heightened hoarding tendencies, the potato market faced a different challenge. One of the paradoxes of the pandemic was the extensive line at food distribution sites for the needy individuals and families while the American potato farmers were left with no choice but to destroy an estimated billion pounds of potatoes. One of the reasons why is because of the highly specialized nature of the modern potato value chains. The seed market...