This pandemic has caused a lot of problems from healthcare up to business
systems. It exposes the flaws of each system and shows the world how unprepared it is when it comes to facing a pandemic. Some business chains all over the world have stopped operating and if this continues, their respective economies will most likely recede. One alternative that we thought of is by digitalizing all the possible paper works and if possible, the manual labor. Many of the supply chains in the world are still being managed by analog processes and during this pandemic, people are discouraged to go out which means that labor workforce has been cut down. By digitalizing the paper works, people who usually work in that line would be able to continue their work at the safety of their own homes. With this, they can easily keep track of the flow of supply even if it goes out of the production and they can gain real insights into where supply chains are strained and the opportunity to fortify them to maximize profits and minimize cost. Way back then, business chains focus on being efficient and being wary of their possible weak points through manual processes, but this pandemic brings light to digital usage as the best current way of managing opportunities and risks. Additionally, investing in machines and programming is a plausible and effective long- term solution for this problem, since operations can be kept running with military precision devoid of human errors, although they are still to keep watch of the parameters programmed into each machine. This essentially eliminates the unnecessary human contact while maintaining, or maybe even improving productivity. During these trying times, this would truly be a worthy investment.
Another alternative that we suggest is having a diverse array of suppliers. This
discourages centralized production in which only a specific region or company has the capacity to create a certain product that is unique to them. In the past, having a unique product that only your company produces is a great thing because if a certain consumer needs that product, they can and will only purchase it from your company; which means that competition is slim and close to none. The problem here is that when an unfavorable circumstance hits and your business is affected and possibly crippled, those consumers won’t be able to obtain that product that you’re producing; and it is an even worse case if you happen to be producing a certain material that is a key ingredient in other companies’ production lines. This will create a big and negative impact on the supply chain. By diversifying the suppliers, they can easily fill that gap that was created when a problem arises. If competition is being heavily focused during these pandemic times, economies will have a hard time bouncing back to what they originally were. Diversification is great because it opens different options specially in this current age where unexpected calamities are always one step ahead of us. This strategy is in line with one of the sustainable development concepts called “glocalization”, which is an amalgamation of globalization and localization. An industry will permit many companies all over the world to produce their products and encourage them to develop raw materials locally. With this, most, if not all, of the types of industries will not be confined geographically and can be accessed from one place if it suddenly became unavailable in another.
