The biggest and most permanent change to the container shipping industry brought about in the last two-and-a-half years may be the public’s understanding of what “supply chain” truly means and the impact of our business on the world’s economy and the everyday consumer.
The pandemic and its results fueled a supply chain strengths-and-weaknesses assessment, and one of the most important points to arise is the importance of having strong, well-managed, and long term investors as your supply chain partners. We learned that even without this, paying a higher short-term price cannot buy success.
It also provided an invaluable, real-time lesson on how each node along the supply chain is interconnected and reliant on the success — fluidity — of the others. When one stumbles, the ripple effect is wide-ranging and not easily, quickly, or inexpensively “fixed.” We learned that the most capable ports and supply chain gateways are those who can integrate operations and best manage the relationships with all partners within the “supply chain village.”
Finally, the industry learned that in order to avoid the aforementioned realities, we must be continually investing in infrastructure and technology to handle the next supply-chain disruption.
What will not change are the increasing demands and expectations on this industry to seamlessly and sustainably move goods around the globe — it is imperative to understand this reality. The benefits of this education are important, but so now are the expectations of this industry. We must take from the lessons of the last two-and-a-half years and know that greater resiliency is required to meet further challenges that lie ahead.