Disruption, Digitisation, Resilience

5 DISRUPTION, DIGITISATION, RESILIENCE : The future of Asia-Pacific supply chains Last year, in the early months of the pandemic, shortages in consumer goods and medical materials gripping countries around the globe were interpreted by many journalists, economists and not a few executives as portending a broader collapse in supply, particularly in essential consumer goods. Shelves in supermarkets, pharmacies and big box retailers, while not barren, became much barer as global supply chains were disrupted by the pandemic and the various responses to it. Those fears were not unfounded. Some industries struggled then and continue to struggle now. However, much of the shortages first experienced with the covid outbreak were not sustained. Retail shelves, physical and virtual, were once again full only a few months later. The swift recovery in supply of most consumer goods came with considerable effort from all participants in global supply chains, but it wasn’t evenly felt by all sectors. “It’s very hard to generalise [about supply chains holding up],” says Stephen Olson, senior research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation, a non-government organisation focused on trade. “You have to look at it on a sector-by- sector basis.” To that end, The Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Citi, surveyed global supply-chain managers, or those responsible for supply decisions in the region from a range of industries, to understand the extent of the disruptions caused by the pandemic, what they are doing in response and how that may — or may not — change the shape of supply chains (see box out for survey demographics).