With a new administration in the White House, supply chain leaders need to consider how rules and regulations will be changing in the near future and start making preparations.
Atul Vashistha (info@supplywisdom.com) is the founder and chairman of Supply Wisdom, a patented continuous monitoring, risk intelligence, and automated risk actions solution. He has also authored three best-selling books: The Offshore Nation,Globalization Wisdom, and Outsourcing Wisdom.
The combination of President Biden’s executive orders on U.S. supply chains, the climate crisis, and lessons learned from the pandemic will likely result in a major rewrite of the compliance handbook as we know it. What does this mean for supply chains? History shows that what starts as an executive order can result in increased financial and compliance disclosures, and finally migrates to enhanced oversight and regulations.
Instead of taking a wait-and-see approach, supply chain risk leaders can proactively prepare for this new regulatory landscape now. By understanding the weaknesses exposed by the pandemic, assessing the current administration’s priorities, and adopting more advanced supply chain risk management practices today, enterprises can not only ensure compliance with future regulations but also reap the benefits of greater supply chain resiliency in the near term.
COVID-19: A Catalyst for Change
With up to 75% of companies reporting significant disruption in their supply chain, the pandemic wreaked havoc on economies across the globe. The pandemic exposed critical weaknesses in supply chain management processes and revealed that most companies lack great visibility into their supply chains.
COVID-19 illustrated the importance of knowing early warning signs for effective disruption avoidance efforts. Unfortunately, most companies lack the continuous, 24/7 risk monitoring capabilities needed for early warning and instead rely on traditional point-in-time practices like periodic risk assessments that happen at best every few months but most often annually or biennially. During the pandemic, data collected during third-party risk assessments conducted a year or even months before the pandemic quickly became stale during the pandemic’s rapidly changing risk environment. When informed and quick decisions in response to disruptions or risks were required, supply chain leaders simply didn’t have the timely data needed to maintain continuity.
Additionally, supply chain risk practices were too focused on a limited set of risks like supplier financial health and contract compliance. During the pandemic, financial and compliance risks were lagging indicators. Supply chain resilience requires widening the risk aperture beyond financial and contract compliance to include regulatory, ESG, and location-based risks. During the pandemic, leading indicators were location-based risks such as local government regulations aimed at controlling the spread of the pandemic - including forced workplace shutdowns, border closures, and travel bans - and local infrastructure weaknesses in terms of equipment and internet availability to enable work from home.
Finally, the lack of supply chain visibility was exacerbated by the fact that most companies’ knowledge of their supply chains was not deep enough. During the pandemic, many supply chains were disrupted by shortages or disruptions occurring at their suppliers’ suppliers. These “Nth” party suppliers often were operating in different locations with different location specific risk landscapes than the companies’ third-party suppliers. Today, “Nth” parties operating in nations or with ownership not aligned with U.S. interests pose significant disruption risks. Supply chain resiliency requires knowing your entire supply chain from third parties all the way to “Nth” parties.
Undoubtedly prompted by the supply chain disruptions experienced during the pandemic,
Biden’s executive order on America’s supply chains outlines the administration’s desire to ensure resilient, diverse and secure supply chains in the United States. The findings from the ordered 100-day review of supply chain risks could result in new regulations to address the exposed shortcomings. For example, requirements to disclose monitoring of climate change and diversity activities and the outcomes achieved by both the entity and its suppliers. Along the lines of ensuring secure supply chains, the order highlights the need to identify areas in the civilian supply chain that are dependent on foreign adversaries or competitor nations.
Climate change regulations coming
President Biden has been very clear on his priorities and plans to drive the mitigation of climate pollution and climate-related risks. On day one, he rejoined the Paris Climate Accord, revoked the Keystone XL oil pipeline federal permit, and pledged to “review” a laundry list of existing business regulations. Then in his Executive Order on Climate Change, he established the National Climate Task Force and outlined a broad spectrum of climate goals, including achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
As outlined in the executive order, the administration intends for climate change initiatives to be adopted across the federal government in terms of policymaking, budget process, contracting, and procurement. These changes could be implemented across every sector of the economy. Therefore, in the near future, we can anticipate emerging regulations to address a variety of climate issues including reduction of climate pollution, increased resilience to the impacts of climate change, environmental justice reform, protection of public health, and conservation of land, water, ocean, and biodiversity. For supply chain professionals, this will mean kickstarting and monitoring initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, waste, water usage and more – and to ensure adequate reporting on performance for assessment. Interestingly we are already seeing signs of this. As an example, the SEC Examination Priorities for 2021 also includes a greater focus on climate and ESG related risks. Based on this, companies can first expect increased financial statement disclosure requirements and new regulations focusing on climate change initiatives throughout the entire business.
Preparing for change? Know your risks.
Keeping up with supply chain changes and expectations requires visibility and continuous risk monitoring. As effects from the pandemic continue and new regulations around sustainability, third-party visibility and near real-time collaboration are created, companies need to advance their supply chain management practices. Integrating continuous monitoring capabilities will enable supply chain leaders to not only make timely and effective decisions to improve supply chain resiliency, but it will also enable companies to keep up with the changing regulatory landscape and avoid costly fines and tarnished reputations.
Supply Chain Xchange Executive Editor Susan Lacefield moderates a panel discussion with Supply Chain Xchange's Outstanding Women in Supply Chain Award Winners (from left to right) Annette Danek-Akey, Sherry Harriman, Leslie O'Regan, and Ammie McAsey.
Supply Chain Xchange recognized four women who have made significant contributions to the supply chain management profession today with its second annual Outstanding Women in Supply Chain Award. The award winners include Annette Danek-Akey, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Barnes & Noble; Sherry Harriman, Senior Vice President of Logistics and Supply Chain for Academy Sports + Outdoors; Leslie O’Regan, Director of Product Management for DC Systems & 3PLs at American Eagle Outfitters; and Ammie McAsey, Senior Vice President of Customer Distribution Experience for McKesson’s U.S. Pharmaceutical division.
Throughout their careers, these four supply chain executive have demonstrated strategic thinking, innovative problem solving, and effective leadership as well as a commitment to giving back to the profession.
The awards were presented at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) annual EDGE Conference in Nashville, Tenn. In addition to the awards presentation, the leaders discussed their leadership philosophies and career path during a panel discussion at the EDGE conference.
The surge of “nearshoring” supply chains from China to Mexico offers obvious benefits in cost, geography, and shipping time, as long as U.S. companies are realistic about smoothing out the challenges of the burgeoning trend, according to a panel today at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
Those challenges span a list including: developing infrastructure, weak security, manual processes, and shifting regulations, speakers said in a session titled “Nearshoring: Transforming Surface Transportation in the U.S.”
For example, a recent Mexican government rail expansion added lines to tourist destinations in Cancun instead of freight capacity in the Southwest, said panelist Edward Habe, Vice President of Mexico Sales, for Averitt. Truckload cargo inspections may rely on a single person looking at paper filings on the border, instead of a 24/7 online system, said Bob McCloskey, Director for Logistics and Distribution at Clarios, LLC. And business partners inside Mexico often have undisclosed tier-two, tier-three, and tier-four relationships that are difficult to track from the U.S., said Beth Kussatz, Manager of Northern American Network Design & Implementation, Deere & Co.
Still, dedicated companies can work with Mexican authorities, regulators, and providers to overcome those bottlenecks with clever solutions, the panelists agreed. “Don’t be afraid,” Habe said. “It just makes sense in today’s world, the local regionalization of manufacturing. It’s in our interest that this works.”
A quick reaction in the first 24 hours is critical for keeping your business running after a cyberattack, according to Estes Express Lines, the less than truckload (LTL) carrier whose computer systems were struck by hackers in October, 2023.
Immediately after discovering the breach, the company cut off their internet, called in a third-party information technology (IT) support team, and then used their only remaining tools—employees’ personal email and phone contacts—to start reaching out to their shipper clients. The message on Day One: even though the company was reduced to running the business with paper and pencil instead of computers, they were still picking up loads on time with trucks.
“Customers never want to hear bad news, but they really don’t want to hear bad news from someone other than you,” the company’s president and COO, Webb Estes, said in a session today at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
After five or six painful days, Estes transitioned from paper back to computers. But they continued sending clients daily video updates from their president, and putting their chief information officer on conference calls to answer specific questions.
Although lawyers had advised them not to be so open, the strategy worked. It took 19 days to get all computer systems running again, but at the end of the first month they had returned to 85% of their original client list, and now have 99% back, Estes said in the session called “Hackers are Always Probing: Cybersecurity Recovery and Prevention Lessons Learned.”
As the final hours tick away before a potential longshoreman’s strike begins at midnight on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, experts say the ripples of that move could roll across the entire U.S. supply chains for weeks.
While some of the nation’s largest retailers were able to pull their imports forward in recent weeks to soften the blow, “the average supply chain is ill-prepared for this,” Tom Nightingale, the former CEO of AFS Logistics, said in a panel discussion today at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
Despite that grim prognosis, a strike seems virtually unavoidable, CSCMP President & CEO Mark Baxa said from the stage. At latest report, the White House had declined to force the feuding parties back into arbitration through its executive power, and a voluntary last-minute session had failed to unite the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA)’s 45,000 union members with the United States Maritime Alliance that manages the 36 ports covered under their expiring contract.
The ultimate impact of a resulting strike will depend largely on how long it lasts, the panelists said. With a massive flow of 140,000 twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) of shipping containers moving through the two coasts each week, each day of a strike will require 7 to 10 days of recovery for most types of goods, Nightingale said.
Shippers are desperately seeking coping mechanisms, but at this point the damage will add up fast, whether a strike lasts for an optimistic “option A” of just 48 to 72 hours, a pessimistic “Option B” of 7 to 10 days, or even longer, agreed Jon Monroe, president of Jon Monroe Consulting.
The first full day of CSCMP’s EDGE 2024 conference ended with the telling of a great American story.
Author and entrepreneur Fawn Weaver explained how she stumbled across the little-known story of Nathan “Nearest” Green and, in deciding to tell that story, launched the fastest-growing and most award-winning whiskey brand of the past five years—and how she also became the first African American woman to lead a major spirits company.
Weaver is CEO of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, a company she founded in 2016 and that is part of her larger private investment business, Grant Sidney, Inc. Weaver told the story of Uncle Nearest—as Nathan Green was known in his hometown of Lynchburg, Tenn.—to Agile Business Media & Events Chairman Mitch MacDonald, in a keynote interview Monday afternoon.
As it turns out, Green—who was born into slavery and freed after the Civil War—was the first master distiller for the Jack Daniel’s Whiskey brand. His story was well-known among the local descendants of both Daniel and Green, but a mystery in the larger world of bourbon and a missing piece of American history and culture. Through extensive research and interviews with descendants of the Daniel and Green families, Weaver discovered what she describes as a positive American story.
“I believed it was a story of love, honor, and respect,” she told MacDonald during the interview. “I believed it was a great American story.”
Weaver told the story in her best-selling book, Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest, and has channeled it into an even larger story with the founding of the brand. Today, Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey is made at a 323-acre distillery in Shelbyville, Tenn.—the first distillery in U.S. history to commemorate an African American and the only major distillery in the world owned and operated by a Black person.
Weaver and MacDonald's wide-ranging discussion covered the barriers Weaver encountered in bringing the brand to life, her vision for where it’s headed, and her take on the supply chain—which she said she views as both a necessary cost of doing business and an opportunity.
“[It’s] an opportunity if you can move quickly,” she said, emphasizing a recent project to fast-track a new Uncle Nearest product in which collaborating with the company’s supply chain partners was vital.
Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey has earned more than 600 awards, including “World’s Best” by Whisky Magazine two years in a row, the “Double Gold” by San Francisco World Spirits Competition, and Wine Enthusiast’s “Spirit Brand of the Year.”
CSCMP’s EDGE 2024 runs through Wednesday, October 2, at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center in Nashville.