SCALA Consulting recently held its 22nd Annual Supply Chain Debate at the MTC – Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry with over 150 senior UK logistics and supply chain executives in attendance. The debate, chaired by SCALA’s Chris Clowes, was entitled “Rethinking Supply Chain Globalisation” with the panel made up of four diverse experts, representing a range of industry perspectives: Tiger Wang, Chairman of the Ocean Business Group (China); Jenn Smiley, Head of Customer Supply and Logistics of Jordans Dorset Ryvita; Kirsty Lantos, Chief Operating Officer, Tangle Teezer and Professor John Manners-Bell, Founder of Ti Insight and the Foundation for Future Supply Chain.
The speakers set out their views on the main challenges facing global supply chains and how their companies had navigated disruptions stemming from Brexit, tariffs and Covid-19. During the debate, audience members had the opportunity to take part in an online survey, providing a fascinating insight into the state of sourcing and future supply chain strategies.
When asked about the changes that President Trump’s tariffs would bring to the global supply chain environment, there was almost complete consensus in the audience that European and Asia countries would strengthen their links. In contrast, nobody believed that ‘decoupling’ would result and very few thought that the USA would regain its advantage in the manufacturing supply chain.
The top three barriers to reducing dependence on global supply chains, according to the audience, were ‘the complexity of change management’; the ‘cost of transition’ and ‘supplier availability and capacity’. Survey participants also considered, by a wide margin, that ‘geopolitical tension and trade barriers’ had played the most significant role in undermining confidence in global supply chains.
With supply chain resilience such a major issue, Professor Manners-Bell asked the audience during his presentation specifically about the potential for re-shoring critical manufacturing back to the UK. 84% of respondents thought it would be ‘difficult’ or ‘impossible’ and only 11% thought it would be ‘achievable’. Still, when asked about the role which re-industrialisation would play in the UK’s future supply chain resilience, over three quarters thought it either ‘very important’ or ‘important’. Finally, Manners-Bell asked what the audience thought were the biggest threats to UK international supply chains in the next five years. Over a third considered ‘security and geo-political conflict’ and a further third thought ‘cyber attacks’. Interestingly, less than 10% of respondents thought that ‘tariffs and protectionism’ or ‘infrastructure bottlenecks’ were the most major threats.
Commenting on the event and the survey, Manners-Bell said, ‘The Annual Supply Chain Debate is a great institution, bringing together many senior supply chain and logistics executives. These are very difficult times for the industry, facing disruption from political and economic forces. It was interesting to see that the vast majority of people at the event believed that re-industrialisation would be important to increase the country’s resilience in the face of future geo-political conflicts although they were in no doubt how difficult this task will be.’
Author: John Manners-Bell
Source: Ti Insight
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