A Look Back: Revisiting Secondary Supply Chain

Rethinking Supply Chain

In this new episode of Rethinking Supply Chain, John Abrams, CEO of Venzee, and Diana Chen take a look back at some key takeaways from Episode 35 featuring guest Phil Renaud, Executive Director of the Risk Institute at The Ohio State University.

As Phil shared in that episode, nobody really builds a “just in case” or secondary supply chain. It seems reasonable if not obvious that organizations should have a backup supply chain, but how does that look in reality?

John agrees. He and Diana discuss the myriad of reasons why a “just in case” supply chain never really works. When existing relationships with vendors or service providers suddenly become unavailable, it’s nearly impossible to simply pick another vendor and keep things moving.

This hasn’t stopped supply chain and logistics teams from dreaming up secondary supply chains for the benefit of executives who want them, but unless those paths are routinely exercised and active, they will fall short in the event of a major disruption (much like we’ve seen with COVID-19).

Listen to this new episode to learn new strategies for building flexibility and resiliency into the supply chain. Some are easy enough for you to implement today, such as using multiple vendors for similar tasks.