The impacts airising from the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains

Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic brought about unimaginable consequences for businesses, with lockdown, quarantine and social isolation causing the closure of borders, factories and stores in several countries, which ultimately locked down the most diverse supply chains, demonstrating an important characteristic of society today: supply chains are highly dependent. Business analysts are citing that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains are unprecedented in recent business history, something that can be visualized with supply chains becoming partially paralyzed as a result of official measures to prevent the pandemic from spreading at a speed that health systems cannot meet. However, some academic works have already warned of the danger of business concentration in specific regions of the planet, where the main focus is the low cost of production, without addressing strategic objectives or focusing on strategic products. This work proposes a reflection on the location of suppliers in certain geographical areas, as this implies the use of long supply chains, proposing an alternative for the creation and planning of shorter supply chains for products that are classified as strategic.