For Real Supply Chain Resilience, Think Like A Bee, Not A Buyer

I recognize that a story about birds and bees would attract more clicks than a story that talks about, collective sigh, buyers. However, there are lessons we can learn about the innate behaviors of buyers and bees that could help you rethink how to manage your supply chain strategy in this unprecedented era of volatility and systemic risk.

As a former supply chain management executive, I can attest that the first responsibility often listed in a buyer’s job description is lower landed costs! The second bullet is usually a variant of “refer to the first bullet.” This quest to lower costs pursued over the span of multiple decades has resulted in the offshoring of manufacturing across multiple industries.

My father, a clothing manufacturing executive, spoke enthusiastically about his efforts to help shift apparel manufacturing from the continental USA to factories in Mexico (maquiladoras) and the Caribbean. These outsourcing decisions were rational—until they weren’t. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed just how brittle our just-in-time, far-flung supply chains had become.

During the pandemic, I was CEO of a food processing company that grew, froze and packed ready-to-eat fruit. One spring morning, I walked through the berry farm in Vancouver, Washington.  What I saw was the platonic ideal of a farm. Except, something seemed off. There was not a flower in sight.

Viewed from the lens (okay multiple lenses) of a native bee, what I saw was a desert. There would be no pollen and nectar available for foraging bees until the blueberries started blooming. From the perspective of a bee, the farm was like an all-you-can-eat restaurant that was open for business for just two months of the year.  No thank you.

That morning walk crystallized something I’d been feeling about global supply chains for years: an overwhelming sense of vulnerability. If our honeybee supplier incurred a loss of his hives due to Colony Collapse Disorder, we would not have an adequate supply of bees to pollinate our crops. No pollination. No fruit.

So, I made the decision to add floral diversity to our farm to make it attractive for native pollinators. With technical assistance from the Xerces Society, we created a habitat that would provide bees and other beneficial insects with continuous supply of flowering plants from early spring through fall. In short order, the bees arrived and supplemented the honeybees in pollinating our berry crops.

As you think about your supply chains, unlearn the ingrained behaviors of buyers and think about designing a supply chain that would make a bumblebee, well, buzz.

I’ve managed through a lot of supply chain and logistics challenges including a foodborne pathogen outbreak that almost killed one person and triggered a multi-million dollar claim, a heat dome that decimated crops, multiple transportation disasters, and a large-scale workplace COVID 19 outbreak. I have the bald pate to prove it. But what we’re experiencing now is different; this is not a temporary phenomenon. We’re in for a long, unpredictable haul. So, what should you do:

• First, take a breath. You will get through this (but keep a bottle of Pepto Bismol within arm’s reach). Next, get serious about contingency planning.
• Start with a sober, worst-case-scenario planning exercise with your leadership team. Analyze each element of your supply chain and think about what steps you would need to take to keep the metaphorical lights on in your business. Having this plan in hand will make it easier for you and your team to adapt to shifts in the business environment.
• Then talk to your legal team. Do your contracts have force majeure clauses that would be triggered by a trade war? If not, they should.
• Next, call your customers. These cost shocks should not be absorbed by suppliers. Buyers who think they can offload all the burden onto their suppliers are missing the point. That’s a short-term play in a long-term game. Start a conversation about how to share risk and preserve continuity of supply.
• Finally, revisit your supply chain and design it as if you were trying to sustain healthy populations of native pollinators and beneficial insects.  Add diversity. Build in redundancy.  Think long-term.  Do this not only for finished products but also for key components and raw materials.

If you do these things well, you will keep your customers stocked with goods and minimize the hit to your gross margin. Who knows, you might then have some time to read a story about the birds and the bees…