Strategic drivers to overcome the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: implications for ensuring resilience in supply chains

Abstract

The recent coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the manufacturing industry’s entire supply chain system. It is important to investigate the strategic drivers to deal with the impacts of COVID-19 in the manufacturing industry. Accordingly, this study aims to identify the strategic drivers to overcome the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and improve the resiliency of the Bangladeshi footwear industry, an emerging economy. The strategic drivers are identified after reviewing research papers, reports, blogs, and discussions on social media platforms. The main drivers and their respective sub-drivers are finalized by discussing with domain experts. To offer strategic plans for building resiliency, it is crucial to know the importance of the main drivers and sub-drivers; therefore, the best–worst method is applied to determine the priority importance of the strategic drivers. The findings indicate that the top five drivers to defeat the impacts of COVID-19 are “high capability of reconfigurability,” “enhance the relationship with suppliers,” “develop health protocols to continue manufacturing,” “government support through incentives, subsidy, tax rebate, etc.,” and “set a policy to stable material supply”. Based on the findings, this study also provides practical implications with proposed research themes for policymakers and operations managers towards mitigating the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study’s contribution is unique and important for the footwear supply chain as the research on COVID-19 in the context of resiliency focusing on the footwear supply chain is non-existent.

Key determinants to supply chain resilience to face pandemic disruption: An interpretive triple helix framework

“…These policies then need to be implemented strongly in the industries. The industries can be given incentives such as tax rebates on complying with the regulations [ 95 , 96 ]. In this way, an infrastructure based on policy and compliance needs to be established between the government and industry.…”

Supply chain strategies in response to a black-swan event: a comparison of USA, French and Polish firms

“…For example, buyers and suppliers work together to utilize shared resources and minimize waste (Yan and Dooley, 2014). Strengthening buyer-supplier relationships was found to be a critical driver in mitigating the effects of COVID-19 and enhancing SC resilience (Ozdemir et al, 2022;Shen and Sun, 2023) by optimizing material sourcing and maintaining production levels during times of disruption (Moktadir et al, 2023). Additionally, collaboration with key customers is important for improvements such as inventory management, product assortment and customer satisfaction (Bowman, 2004).…”

“…Strengthening buyer–supplier relationships was found to be a critical driver in mitigating the effects of COVID-19 and enhancing SC resilience (Ozdemir et al. , 2022; Shen and Sun, 2023) by optimizing material sourcing and maintaining production levels during times of disruption (Moktadir et al. , 2023).…”

The Impact of COVID-19 on supply chain analytics: A global review

“…The pandemic has also affected the food supply chain, leading to discussions on the implications of COVID-19 on socioeconomic factors and the impact of lockdown on the food supply chain and agri-business (Barman & De, 2021). Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a review of the strategies and corresponding competences needed to improve supply chain resilience, emphasizing the importance of strategic drivers to overcome the impacts of the pandemic and ensure resilience in supply chains (Kiers et al, 2022;Balogun et al, 2024;Moktadir et al, 2022).…”