Strategic Supply Chain Comes of Age Post-Pandemic CLAREMONT, CA—The COVID-19 pandemic has proven the critical nature of the strategic supply chain, according to expert supply chain thought leaders within the Society for the Advancement of Consulting® (SAC). Companies realize they can no longer ignore this crucial business function, which belongs firmly in the C-Suite. This includes the thinking, actions, and initiatives that put the supply chain in a strategic context. Inventory Accommodation or Optimization? "As a manufacturer, do you have an inventory accommodation strategy or an inventory optimization strategy?" asks Patrick Daly, Managing Director of Alba Consulting, based in Dublin, Ireland. "In my work with manufacturing clients, I often find that they do not have any explicitly articulated strategy at all." "Frequently, there is no feedback loop between infrastructure provision to accommodate inventory, and setting the policies that determine how much inventory the company holds to support manufacturing operations," explains Daly. "Consequently, companies end up engaging in contradictory and counterproductive initiatives in different silos within the business. "Under pressure from excess inventories, operational managers will lobby for increased capital expenditure approvals or the expansion of spending on warehousing with third party logistics service providers," he says. "Meanwhile, policies related to materials on hand, dual supply, supplier location and lead time, and minimum order quantities, are set or agreed upon without reference to the inventory accommodation consequences. The best results are achieved by explicitly tying these two strands together systemically with a coherent strategy." Boardroom Involvement Gaining Ground "Executives are quickly realizing that the end-to-end supply chain must be elevated to a strategic topic in the boardroom," points out Lisa Anderson, president of Claremont, CA-based LMA Consulting Group, Inc and a manufacturing expert known for creating supply chain resiliency. "Many companies were caught off guard during the pandemic with limited resiliency, highlighting this issue." "Reshoring is on the rise. Collaboration with United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) partners is increasing," notes Anderson. "Executives are no longer just considering their options, they're taking actions to take control. As options are evaluated, it's becoming clear that the supply chain is larger than any single topic su