The global pandemic has hit the world’s supply chains from many different angles. On the supply side, border closings and lockdowns kept production sites shuttered. On the demand side, consumers who couldn’t take vacations or dine out subsequently increased their spending on durable goods. This created a perfect storm of challenges for businesses as they tried to satisfy the demand. Many of them couldn’t secure the raw materials needed for production, forcing the smooth cadence of trade flows to become uneven.
This, in turn, created the many supply chain disruptions that most industries are experiencing right now. Alleviating these problems is going to take time. “Because more than one cause or event got us to our current situation, one single solution will not relieve the stress,” Citi points out in a new report, “Global Supply Chains: The Complicated Road Back to ‘Normal.’”
