Willy Shih, professor at Harvard Business School, says that the complex, global, and just-in-time manufacturing processes we’ve developed in recent decades are highly susceptible to breakdowns, especially during a global pandemic. He explains why the shortages we’ve seen in 2020 – in goods from toilet paper to appliances – are indicative of a bigger problem and talks through ways can businesses protect themselves and consumers in the future. Shih is the author of the HBR article “Global Supply Chains in a Post-Pandemic World.”
This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast on September 8, 2020.
Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
1:34 – How Global Supply Chains Work
3:19 – Risks of Globalizing a Supply Chain
7:29 – Identifying and Fixing Supply Chain Vulnerabilities
10:33 – Identifying High Risk Spots
14:53 – Investing in Solutions During a Recession
21:14 – How Crisis Unfroze Medical Manufacturing
23:53 – Outro