The disruptive impact from COVID-19 on most businesses and their supply chain is severe, and for many supply chain leaders, the worst is probably still to come from the lock-down now also spreading across US and Europe.

As an immediate response to this crisis, many businesses have already set up a ‘war room’ and a cross-functional Crisis Management Response (CMR) team to quickly and effectively address the immediate and adverse effects of COVID-19 on their supply chain. The focus has – for good reasons – been short term. The attention of many supply chain leaders is, however, already now gradually starting to shift from short-term firefighting actions to more medium- to long-term actions aimed at stabilising and strengthening their supply chain.

We have gathered four recommended actions:

1. (Re-)assess and, potentially, redefine the level of granularity and time horizon used for the demand forecast.
2. Assess and, potentially, redefine the current demand planning process
3. Leverage statistical forecasting and demand sensing tools to generate a realistic demand forecast on a continuous and frequent basis
4. Assess if the current people skills and resources available are sufficient and, if not, decide how best to close this gap

 Read more about the recommended actions here.