Global Trade • January February 2023 • MAKE RESILIENCY YOUR SUPERPOWER

COVID-19 has significantly accelerated several trends that had been gradually building over the years. E-commerce sales grew by 16.5% across the globe, and 39% of consumers tried new brands during quarantine.

Such shifts are not isolated to any one industry. For example, Carvana’s stock more than doubled in 2020 as consumers got comfortable with buying used cars from vending machines. Video game sales in the U.S. broke new records, rising to $11.2 billion in the third quarter of 2020, a 24% increase compared to the same period from the previous year.

Such radical shifts in consumer buying behavior, when coupled with pandemic-induced, supply-side disruptions due to plant, DC closures, or port shutdowns, cause significantly elevated risks to supply chains. One such example is the choked capacity of U.S. ports and ocean lanes from China to the U.S. to meet the insatiable demand of quarantined consumers. Major U.S. ports imported 2.21 million 20-foot containers in October 2020, up 17.6% from a year earlier and setting a record.

Because supply chains are subject to simultaneous demand and supply side shocks, many organizations have struggled to keep pace. Supply chains have entered the C-suite and the boardrooms, as business continuity planning has come front and center. Executives are realizing that building optionality into supply chains is essential to ensure continuity of supply in a world where the pace of change is relentless.

All this calls for reassessing supply chain design for resiliency. Gone are the days when companies could consider supply chain design as an episodic, project-based activity. Supply chain design needs to be constantly reassessed, refreshed, and synchronized with supply chain planning. The policies that governed the supply chain can no longer be “set and forget” exercises. Supply chain nodes, modes, and flows need to be continually revisited and tuned as conditions change. Any changes recommended through such continuous design need to be factored into supply chain planning for execution.

This opportunity is incentivizing organizations to accelerate the adoption of supply chain design technologies that are far more agile and continuous than the project-based approaches of the past. Many organizations with the world’s largest and most complex supply chains—including all five Gartner Supply Chain Masters and 23 of the Gartner Supply Chain Top 25—have chosen Coupa Supply Chain Design & Planning powered by LLamasoft to optimize their supply chain performance.

[Editor’s note: Coupa acquired LLamasoft, a leader in AI-powered supply chain design and planning, for approximately $1.5 billion in late 2020. Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, LLamasoft’s technology is used by hundreds of enterprise customers, including brands such as Boeing, Danone S.A., Home Depot and Nestle.]

Those who are innovating with continuous supply chain design built on data and powerful AI are making smarter, faster supply chain decisions—and forging a leadership position in their markets.

Regardless of where you are on your supplychain- design maturity journey, the right technology partner will offer the solution you need today and help prioritize the adoption of additional capabilities aligned to your evolving business priorities.

Dr. Madhav Durbha is vice president of Supply Chain Strategy at Coupa. He invites anyone who desires more information on how Coupa can help reimagine supply chain design and planning for resiliency to visit coupa.com.