COVID-19 By The Numbers. My Takeaway For Supply Chain Leaders

November 24, 2020
4:24 pm

I like numbers.
Working with a spreadsheet and gaining an understanding of the patterns is cathartic for me. I also like to build infographics.
I joined Statista in my effort to train myself to build compelling infographics. I like their stuff. Here I am going to use some of their work to tell a story of what I think supply chain leaders need to do in this COVID-19 world.
COVID-19 introduces uncertainity and variability into the supply chain. Unlike other risk management events, there is no new normal. Instead, the supply chain leader is left to ride wave after wave of disruption. Supply chain processes are inside-out not outside-in. As a result, most supply chain leaders are riding the waves through brute force. Here, in this blog, I use the Statistica infographics to share three insights to help leaders in this unpredictable time.

Regional Differences

In the United States, we are so tied up with the twenty-four-hour news cycle centered on the election and the rise of hospitalization, that I think that we are missing the impact of shifts in global demand due to COVID-19. In Figure 1, I share the Statista tracking of COVID-19 cases by country. While many might fixate on the size of the impact on the United States, what is important to me in this chart is the conspicuous absence of China, North Korea, and Japan. While Asian markets are struggling with the shifts in demand in Europe and North America, they have relative stability in their home markets.
The lingering impact of the costs of healthcare of COVID and the decimation state/local government budgets for testing/contact tracing lay before us. The black cloud of the cost impact hangs large over the countries with the highest infection rate that is absent in Asia.
So what does this mean for you? Businesses cannot succeed when society is failing. Next year, the giving supply chain increases in importance. Fallout and failure are inevitable. In short, supply chain models need to be outside-in and regional with clear corporate governance. We need to sense shifts in the market, and design processes to decrease data latency and minimize waste. In parallel, we need to take care of our suppliers through supplier development programs. Work on being a good trading partner. Now is not the time to elongate payables.

Shifts in Demand

As more and more families stay home, there is an unprecedented demand for products and a declining need for services. This radical shift, which changes over time, shifts demand. The impact is pervasive. History is a poor guide.
In this critical time, food products for the home rise and restaurant sales decline, home cleaning supplies increase and commercial janitorial products slow, elective surgeries delayed and emergency supplies expedited. The decline in service spending will redefine the dollar conscious retailer.
Consider this impact in light of the statistics of the fundamental shift in the market over the last seventy-five years. At the conclusion of World War II, at which time service industries accounted for 10% of nonfarm employment, compared with 38% for manufacturing. Since the 1970s the American economy has moved away from producing goods to providing services, and the service-producing sector has accounted for an increasing proportion of workers. In 1970, for example, there were 48.8 million service-providing workers, and 22.2 million people in the goods-producing sector, representing a service-to-goods ratio of 2.2 to one. By 2000, the number of workers in the service-providing sector was 107.1 million, compared with 24.6 million in the goods-producing sector, representing a service-to-goods ratio of 4.4 to one. This decline in the services sector is a big deal.
The decline in the purchase of services drives unemployment and the need for governmental stimulus. Spending will be very cyclical based on stimulus payment schedules and the business fundamentals of demand shift. The net/net? In this period, historic order patterns are a poor proxy for market demand. Redefine traditional demand management processes based on historic order patterns to model market patterns.

Need For Localized Assortment

The COVID-19 infection rate varies by state. The Statista model in Figure 3, represents the unemployement rate as of July 25, 2020.
As the economy wanes and waxes through the COVID-19 cycles, and we approach the period of a vaccine, market demand shifts are local. As a result, companies need to focus on localized assortment and build regional planning models. A broadbrush approach is fools play.
Respond locally, but plan globally, sounds easy, but it is not. For most organizations, this requires a redesign of planning.
In conclusion, in this critical time, we cannot generalize markets and it is imperative to sense market shifts and translate with minimal latency.
Good luck to all of my supply chain followers.

Warning: Sidestep the Narrative of the Misguided Goldiggers

August 10, 2026 4:58 pm

Ten years ago, I started writing a book titled Stories of the Misguided Gold Diggers. The book was a collection of stories from two decades of stories of technology leaders perpetuating the myth of integrated end-to-end supply chain planning.

I dusted off the manuscript on Saturday. I think that we have a new chapter. Companies focused on putting Artificial Intelligence (AI) on top of existing architectures are putting AI Stupid on steroids.

The Myth of End-to-End Planning

July 31, 2026 9:14 pm

Supply chain planning, supply management, supply chain execution, network design, and transportation/logistics management operate in silos. Not much has changed over four decades. The connections flow back through transactional systems: order-to-cash and procure-to-pay. There is a myth that companies can buy an end-to-end supply chain management solution. This is largely a myth. Here we explain.

Lead Time: A Broken Gossamer

July 16, 2026 6:38 pm

If you are struggling with supply chain planning, dancing in the light of shiny objects, and scratching your head, please read on. My goal is to help you.

Please do not AI Stupid. What do I mean? AI Stupid is putting agents and agentics on top of existing architectures believing that making them faster and hands free add value. To me, this is fools play.

I love AI. I am excited about new technologies. To this end, I want to shine a light on how new technologies can help address the black holes and inconsistencies in today’s supply chain, which largely stem from the limitations of the first generation of supply chain planning and execution technologies. In this blog, I give you three places to start.

Do You Need a Supply Chain Coach?

July 9, 2026 5:27 pm

Supply chain is where the rubber hits the road. For a public company, over 40% of market capitalization is tied to the trade-offs between growth, operating margin, inventory management, and Return on Capital Employed.

The road for supply chain improvement is fraught with issues. Here we share some and offer some advice.

Is your Supply Chain AI Ready?

June 11, 2026 2:39 pm

A simple quiz to assess an organization’s AI readiness.

The pace of change is fast and furious. Every day, technology advances faster than we can digest. A great challenge to have.

Determining whether a supply chain is “AI-ready” is less about technology and more about the gray matter between the ears of supply chain leaders. Leadership, alignment, and clarity of goals matter.

Too few companies are clear on the definition of supply chain excellence. Measuring and rewarding functional metrics reduces the firm’s value. Putting agentics on top of today’s processes can make bad practices run faster, reducing value.

The toughest job for the supply chain leader is challenging existing supply chain paradigms that were defined by the limitations of decades of supply chain technologies. As the curtain lifts on the potential of new forms of technology, process redefinition is our opportunity, but only if we are clear on what drives value. (Here, I link to the Supply Chains to Admire reports to help you define value. The next report will be published on June 23rd, along with my Dynamic Benchmarking Product, to help you define value in the face of your AI readiness. More information about the launch is at the bottom of this blog.)

Case Study: A Scrappy Demand Management Approach

June 9, 2026 5:37 pm

This study of Franklin Sports shines a light on the work that needs to be done at the sales account level to challenge a retail forecast, and also highlights the importance of a new technique for a forecast engine — reinforcement learning.

Artificial intelligence comes in many forms — large language models, generative AI, machine learning, unstructured text mining, deep learning, neural networks, reinforcement learning, agents, and agentics. While the industry is wigging out about agentics, I think reinforcement learning is a great step forward in the journey of Artificial Intelligence.

Supply Chain Shaman