Disruption in Supply Chains. What can be the turnover?

Ongoing disruptions, congestion, and worker shortage have been present in global supply chains for two years now. Countries all over the world have had to face production and delivery failure, as well as unmet distribution targets, specifically companies in the US. 

Resilient economies showed their strength after chaos, as seen with US companies trying to keep up with demand, without meeting the supply. The US had swamped warehouses with cargo waiting for the next available container to ship their goods, and suffered further complications from the delivery backlog. This caused in turn more need for logistics spaces, especially because of the growth of e-commerce. Since real-estate price increases are at an all-time high, the struggle to find spaces has been really problematic. According to a study from Prologis, those spaces available could be drying up in the US by the end of 2023.

An article from Material Handling and Logistics, depicted where supply chain executives focused investment efforts to recover from the pandemic’s impact on their supply chains. The categories included technology, sustainability, and additional workforce, but currently they are looking to invest more on warehouse, transportation, and order management systems to recover from more recent global conflicts.

Moving warehouse and distribution center locations should also be considered for hedging the market’s overall price increases. Nearshoring has been an action taken by suppliers in order to offset geopolitical concerns and increase their capability of delivering shipments in shorter times. It is also an appropriate strategy considering every single cost that goes into a supply chain is increasing. Time to evaluate internal processes, labor and material costs abroad, technology in our favor, sustainability on our systems, and a valuable workforce to allow us to survive these global challenges.