Disruption in Global Food Supply Chain (FSCs) Due to Covid-19 Pandemic and Impact of Digitalization Through Block Chain Technology in FSCs Management

The different pandemics that humanity had experienced, such as the Spanish Flu, Asian Flu, Hong Kong Flu, HIV/AIDS, SARS, Ebola, and Swine Flu,  had a great impact on the global economy, the environment , social lifestyle, agricultural sector,  manufacturing and service industries, hospitality and tourism, education sector, aviation industry etc. Currently, humanity is facing another pandemic, the infection of the new coronavirus known as COVID-19. The objective of this paper is to present a theoretical review of supply chain disruption due to COVID-19 impact, analyze and discuss the effects of this turbulence in global food supply chain management. For the analysis, various contents from published articles, blogs, reports, newspaper publications have been collected. There was sufficient evidence to affirm that the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 has an important effect on global supply chain management process. The purpose of this paper was to highlight the reasons of disruption in global supply chain management especially in food supply chain management. This paper also has depicted the long term impacts of COVID-19 in food supply chain management. By analyzing various documents, few policies and steps were suggested to apply for managing global supply chain management in post pandemic era. Finally it was suggested to implement digitalization in the platform of block chain technology to build-up a robust and sustainable global supply chain management to handle any such situation arise in the future.      Keywords: Supply chain management, COVID-19, Global food supply chain (FSCs), Digitalization, Block chain technology DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-17-08 Publication date:June 30th 202

Economic Effects of Coronavirus Outbreak (COVID-19) on the World Economy

his report discusses the economic impact of the Coronavirus/COVID-19 crisis across industries, and countries. It also provides estimates of the potential global economic costs of COVID-19, and the GDP growth of different countries. The current draft includes estimates for 30 countries, under different scenarios. The report shows the economic effects of outbreak are currently being underestimated, due to over-reliance on historical comparisons with SARS, or the 2008/2009 financial crisis. At the date of this report, the duration of the lockdown, as well as how the recovery will take place is still unknown. That is why several scenarios are used. In a mild scenario, GDP growth would take a hit, ranging from 3-6% depending on the country. As a result, in the sample of 30 countries covered, we would see a median decline in GDP in 2020 of -2.8%. In other scenarios, GDP can fall more than 10%, and in some countries, more than 15%. Service-oriented economies will be particularly negatively affected, and have more jobs at risk. Countries like Greece, Portugal, and Spain that are more reliant on tourism (more than 15% of GDP) will be more affected by this crisis. This current crisis is generating spillover effects throughout supply chains. Therefore, countries highly dependent on foreign trade are more negatively affected. The results suggest that on average, each additional month of crisis costs 2.5-3% of global GDP

Operations and Supply Chain Optimization – The New Era Model

Purpose:This article is an investigative study of optimization of supply chain and hence operations in the new era of digitization and identifies scope for future studies and further development of ways to achieve operational excellence. Design/ Methodology/ Approach:This research uses literature review and case studies to highlight the evolution of supply chain in the present era. The focus is on operational modifications the took place following the disruptions caused by such factors as technological innovations and global pandemic. This study employs the method of case study to support and substantiate the knowledge.Findings:The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated to the world that supply chain is the true lifeline of any business operation. The manufacturers had been hitherto concentrating on long-term planning to decide their future course of action and the organizational strategy. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the futility and vulnerability of long-term planning and the need for short-term ad-hoc decision-making ability.Recommendation Conclusion:It is necessary to optimize supply chain and operations to build in resilience and flexibility to ensure faster response to unforeseen disruptions. Short term responsiveness is gaining popularity and building resilience must overtake forecasting to ensure shocks such as Covid do not throw businesses completely out of gear

Resilience-enhancing solution to mitigate risk for sustainable supply chain-an empirical study of elevator manufacturing

As the complexity of supply chains increases, the enhancement of resilience for mitigating sustainable disruption risks in supply chains is an important issue. Quality function deployment (QFD) has been successfully applied in many domains to solve multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problems. However, research on developing two houses of quality to connect sustainable supply chain disruption risks, resilience capacities, and resilience-enhancing features in elevator manufacturing supply chains by using the MCDM approach is lacking. This study aims to develop a framework for exploring useful decision-making by integrating the MCDM approach and QFD. By applying the framework, supply chain resilience can be improved by identifying the major sustainable risks and the key resilience to mitigate these risks. Important managerial insights and practical implications are obtained from the framework implementation in a case study of the elevator manufacturing industry. To strengthen resilience and thus mitigate key risks, the most urgent tasks are to connect the working site and the backstage to enhance product development and design and to share real-time job information. When these features are strengthened, agility, capacity, and visibility can be improved. Finally, unexpected events lead to changes in supplier delivery dates, and factors such as typhoon and lack of critical capacities/skilled employees with the greatest impact can be alleviated. This framework will provide an effective and pragmatic approach for constructing sustainable supply chain risk resilience in the elevator manufacturing industry.</p

Factors underlying companies response to supply chain disruption: a grounded theory approach

A wide range of recent man-made and natural disasters has demonstrated the importance of managing disruption risk in global supply chains. This research argues that supply chain disruptions are, de facto, unavoidable and consequently all complex supply chains can be considered inherently risky. This research focuses on a relatively unexplored issue in supply chain risk management, asking and answering the question of how companies specifically use time to respond to catastrophic events of low probability but high impact. Linking faster response lead-time with reduced impact, the goal is to identify and explore the underlying factors of managing disruption risk by answering how companies respond to supply chain disruptions. In reducing total response time by detecting the event, designing solutions, and deploying a recovery plan sooner after a disruption, the company can reduce the impact of disruption risk. The research uses Grounded Theory methodology to extend an emerging framework on time-based supply chain risk management. Empirical data is used from a range of sources including interviews and corporate publications from the events faced by global pharmaceutical manufacturer during a pandemic in 2009. The emerging categories of possible factors in response time are further developed using data from the events surrounding the worst maritime oil spill in history in 2010 under the management responsibility of the Exploration and Production (Upstream) division of a global energy company and from an industrial accident in 2005 in the Refining and Marketing division of the same firm. The research identifies four categories of factors that companies can focus on to reduce response time in the face of catastrophic events of low probability and high impact: organisational structure, preparation, partnership and reserve. The research derives new insights, presented as four propositions that relate the response time in managing supply chain disruption to negative or potentially positive impact

What Ukraine Taught NATO about Hybrid Warfare

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 forced the United States and its NATO partners to be confronted with the impact of hybrid warfare far beyond the battlefield. Targeting Europe’s energy security, Russia’s malign influence campaigns and malicious cyber intrusions are affecting global gas prices, driving up food costs, disrupting supply chains and grids, and testing US and Allied military mobility. This study examines how hybrid warfare is being used by NATO’s adversaries, what vulnerabilities in energy security exist across the Alliance, and what mitigation strategies are available to the member states. Cyberattacks targeting the renewable energy landscape during Europe’s green transition are increasing, making it urgent that new tools are developed to protect these emerging technologies. No less significant are the cyber and information operations targeting energy security in Eastern Europe as it seeks to become independent from Russia. Economic coercion is being used against Western and Central Europe to stop gas from flowing. China’s malign investments in Southern and Mediterranean Europe are enabling Beijing to control several NATO member states’ critical energy infrastructure at a critical moment in the global balance of power. What Ukraine Taught NATO about Hybrid Warfare will be an important reference for NATO officials and US installations operating in the European theater.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1952/thumbnail.jp

Tracking Greenfield FDI During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Analysis by Sectors

We study the trends and fluctuations in greenfield foreign direct investment (GFDI) during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis on a global scale. We analyse the data of a data set of GFDI provided by fDi Markets (Financial Times) to understand the contraction of GFDI during the first three quarters of the year 2020, taking into account the sector of the investment and the host and home country. We analyse both the long-run trends and the quarter-over-quarter changes in GFDI to capture its fluctuations before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis. Our findings cast light on which countries’ and industries’ GFDIs were most affected by the pandemic crisis and draw a comparison to the global financial crisis. To our surprise, many services industries have shown unexpected resilience of GFDI due to the flexibility for remote work. On the contrary, GFDI in the manufacturing industries, as well as the extractives and the utility industries, has shown a dramatic decline during the pandemic. These contractions raise questions of stability and resilience of the global supply chains these industries are a part of. JEL Codes: F2

Promoting agri-food systems resilience through ICT in developing countries amid COVID-19

An increasing body of literature has demonstrated COVID-19's harmful impact on agri-food systems, which are a major source of livelihood for millions of people worldwide. Information and communication technology (ICT) has been playing an increasing role in enhancing agri-food systems' resilience amid COVID-19. In this study, the PRISMA approach was employed to perform a systematic review of the literature from January 2020 to December 2021 on the overall impact of COVID-19 on agri-food system networks and ICT's role in enhancing agri-food system resilience in developing countries. This study reveals that COVID-19 has posed abundant obstacles to agri-food systems actors, including a lack of inputs, technical support, challenges to selling the product, transportation barriers, and low pricing. These impediments result in insufficient output, unforeseen stock, and revenue loss. COVID-19's restrictions have caused a significant food deficit by disrupting the demand and supply sides of the agri-food system networks. A high number of small-scale farmers have had to deal with food insecurity. As a result of the cumulative effects, actors in the agri-food system are getting less motivated to continue producing. This study also argues that many challenges in the agri-food systems can be overcome using ICTs, including maintaining precise farm management, product marketing, and access to production inputs. To assist stakeholders in coping with, adapting to, and building resilience in the agri-food system networks, this article emphasizes the critical need to turn to and expand the application of advanced agricultural ICTs to meet the world's growing needs for food production and to ensure the resilience and sustainability of farming systems, particularly in the face of a pandemic like COVID-19

Quintuple Helix Analysis of ASEAN Human Securitization Against Covid-19 As Regional Health Insecurity

The covid-19 pandemic that was started in March 2020 globally has impacted the mobility and regional interaction on all levels. This disruption managed to hinder regional trade and people-to-people mobility, causing economic fallout in all ASEAN member states. The contraction of the economy and its efforts to recover is dependent on the health policies in ASEAN as the virus remains a threat to human security. This article discussed the research through a qualitative analysis with the data gained from the internet-based and document-based research to explore the substances. The article analyzes through the framework of quintuple helix under the concept of human security agenda to construct the arguments in this paper. This paper concluded that the synergy of all stakeholders from the government, society, industry, academics, and the environment should be harmonized to achieve innovative solutions in regional health securitization. This research has shown that each helices’ role is important to curb the spread of Covid-19 and accelerating the best practices of regional policies with a concrete collaboration from all actors in achieving sustainable solutions