During the pandemic, I had decided to decline interviews mainly to focus on personal matters, provide attention to family and commit to teaching & research. This was always a temporary recourse. Now that some constraints are slowly being relaxed, I emerged from my shell and talked to a few reporters about the ongoing supply chain crisis and this blog seems to be a good place to share.
1. LA Times has been doing a great beat on supply chain problems particularly on container ship backup in ports. I talked to their reporter Sam Dean about the back-end issues in supply chains, here.
A broken supply chain isn’t a problem for the logistics industry. It’s a moneymaking opportunity ($ subscription required after a limit on free articles).
I know that reporters don’t control the byline, and this was a little provocative title. Overall, it was a positive experience, as the reporter paid careful attention to my views. I was quoted accurately.
Here is an excerpt:
Big companies have always had the advantage of scale, said Senthil Veeraraghavan, a professor of operations, information and decisions at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school. But now that capacity across the supply chain is stretched to the limit, “the first guys to get squeezed are people who put in small orders.”
The last 20 years have seen an explosion of online direct-to-consumer brands and small e-commerce businesses, such as Ross’ snow globe company, that rely on imports, while the back end of the supply chain has tended toward consolidation. “These aren’t centralized systems, there’s thousands of companies with millions of people doing their own things,” Veeraraghavan said, and it worked to a point, with small importers placing orders more than six months out to get deliveries in time for the holidays. “Then it all collapsed at the same time.”
“Year after year we talk about how a little bit of variation in the supply chain propagates all over the spectrum,” Veeraraghavan said, “and unlike financial volatility, where stocks move up and down almost instantaneously, this is like a ripple in molasses.
2. Penn decided to speak to experts on Supply chains and surprisingly someone decided to make my comments the lede.
| Supply chain and COVID |
| This fall’s supply chain crisis resulted from a confluence of events, say Penn experts. But prime among them is the continued uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. “If you have an item come in in November, that order was placed last winter,” says Senthil Veeraraghavan of the Wharton School. “And last winter, there was a ton of pandemic restructuring happening where companies didn’t see demand.” |
Here you can read some of our wonderful Penn colleagues along with yours truly, commenting on supply chain disruptions. Particularly, I explained why bigger companies are doing better now, than small firms.
How a perfect storm of factors led to ‘the mother of all supply chain disruptions
3. Finally, I went on Sirius XM radio to talk about supply chains — if you like to hear my mellifluous voice on supply chains, here is the radio interview. To be honest, I was surprised by how quickly the radio interview moved. I got to be better on the medium next time. Marshall McLuhan said, “the medium is the message” — it is amazing how concise and absolute one has to be on the radio. No time for thinking “online”.