How Buyers and Suppliers Can Ride Out Supply Chain Storms 

Few could fail to acknowledge the impact of recent supply chain disruptions. But how can businesses large and small manage events that are often outside their direct control? Bringing together its experts from Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and Europe, Taulia explores practical options from a local, regional and global perspective.

Both physical and financial supply chains have been subject to immense pressures for almost two years. There have been disruptions in some of the major shipping hubs, with vessels delayed in port or at anchorage. Onward deliveries have suffered at the hands of road-haulage issues, creating further backlogs in port facilities and adding to delays in the distribution of goods and services.

Ongoing Covid-19 issues, with variants emerging and receding at different times, have seen both overlapping and successive waves of production and supply outages around the world, forcing major supply chain delays. And now the sudden bounce-back by some economies has exacerbated supply-and-demand problems across the world. A shortage of production and transport workers is creating major logistical difficulties for most manufacturers, and the spectre of inflation risk looming, not least as huge price spikes emerge for base commodities such as wood and fuel.

The big question for many Asia-based businesses, notes Steve Scott, Head of Asia Pacific, Taulia, is whether or not single-source supply lines remain advantageous. Numerous companies in the region have relied on China, and even specific regions therein, for both component manufacture and final production. The problem now, he says, is that recent events demonstrate how difficult it is to recognise, understand, and mitigate every new emerging supply chain risk.

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