The invitation arrived a few weeks ago from Lord Charles Bruce, the President of The Democracy Forum. The panel webinar on "Supply Chain Vulnerabilities and the Need for Diversification," was to take place on July 29, 2025. I had mentioned that I would be traveling then. In fact, I would be on a short vacation in Ogunquit, Maine, but I could take part and join from my hotel.
I am pleased that, yesterday, the panel took place and the Internet held up. It was a fascinating event and I wish that we had had more time than the scheduled hour. Lord Bruce did an excellent introduction to some of the pressing issues facing supply chains in this era and Humphrey Hawksley was an outstanding moderator. The full video of our panel is now posted on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyqPiPTGqjg
Thanks also to the audience for the engagement and their questions! I have already received some direct feedback.
I have been working on supply chains for over 20 years and have published multiple books on the topic as well as journal articles, many of which, more recently, focus on tariffs and other policy interventions, as well as geopolitical issues, including wars and strife, and their impacts on supply chains.
In my panel presentation, I emphasized supply chains as "networks" of suppliers, manufacturers, freight service providers, warehouse operators and, of course, consumers interacting as the resources are transformed into finished products and flow from origin points to the destinations, with consumers responding to prices, quality, etc. Such networks can be local or global in nature and are underpinned by such physical networks as transportation networks (roads, rails, rivers, oceans, air, etc.) as well as telecommunication networks and, of course, energy networks that provide the power. Workers (labour) are essential to each link in a supply chain network, as became vividly apparent at the height of the pandemic with labor availability as well as productivity suffering. Products in all sectors, including such critical ones as: agriculture and food processing, high tech, healthcare, automobiles, and construction rely on supply chains.
Mapping out supply chains allows for the visualization of the different tiers, their structure and complexity, and redundancies (or absence thereof), and enables the identification of possible vulnerabilities. Challenges facing the management of supply chain networks now are numerous and include the negative effects of climate change (fires, floods, droughts, landslides) and geopolitical risk due to violence and strife and wars. Further stressing supply chains and their management are tariffs and on-going trade wars, pushing decision-makers to act under great uncertainty.
Diversification is common in finance as in portfolio optimization as a means of reducing risk. Diversification in terms of supply chains can involve having multiple suppliers, multiple manufacturing plants in different regions, and even using different routes for the shipments of goods. Diversification can reduce risk, increase resilience, and enhance flexibility and agility so that customers' needs are satisfied, while other stakeholders in supply chains optimize as closely as possible their objectives, which can include profit-maximization, and even the reduction of environmental impacts. It is important to consider "just-in-case" scenarios and to plan and mitigate accordingly. Supply chains are essential to our societies and economies and ensuring that they continue to function efficiently and cost-effectively supports the well-being of our communities.
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