How is COVID-19 different from other hazards affecting the Supply Chain (natural hazards such as earthquakes, storms, tsunamis, or system, process and human-induced hazards such as fire, cyber attack)?
- While other dangers are limited to one geographic region, COVID-19 has affected the whole world and all countries.
- While other hazards affected a few sectors, COVID-19 affected almost all sectors that produce goods and services.
- While other hazards affect especially supply (demands and needs may come from other sources or from factories or suppliers), COVID-19 has affected both supply (demands and needs have also been challenged from other sources or factories or suppliers) and demand (for some goods or services) excessive demand and no demand for some goods or services).
- While other dangers did not affect the financial structure worldwide, COVID-19 affected the financial (stock market, foreign exchange, cash flow) structure worldwide.
- While other hazards are “short-term” (a few days or weeks) and require short-term solutions (such as field tents), COVID-19 appears to be “long-term” (over a year) and long-term solutions for it, was commissioned (social distancing life, working from the office and even new facilities such as factories and hospitals were opened.)
- While there is no “human” contribution to the natural hazards (for example, bad building may have an effect on the results of the earthquake), COVID-19 started and spread with “human” behaviors (food preferences) and spreads with “human” behaviors (being together, chatting, walking).
- Although companies and states have some preparation plans (risk management) and experience against other dangers, it was seen that there was no such preparation and experience for COVID-19 (1918 Spanish Flu, but the world at that time and the world today are very different).
So COVID-19 was different and it was a good experience (I hope).
NOTE: This article is “What is different about Covid -19 from other supply chain disruptions? inspired by the article.