Last year saw many challenges for trade and supply chains everywhere with major disruptions such as Covid-19 and the Brexit transition playing a part. But despite a tough year, it also presented an opportunity for firms to adapt and evolve.
As we move into 2021, it’s a good time to take stock of how 2020 affected business and what that might now mean for trading this year. In the coming weeks, we’ll forecast what’s ahead in a series of short question and answer interviews with some of our esteemed speakers from our webinars held over the past six months.
In August, Denis Treacy, CEO of Culture Compass, appeared as part of an expert panel in our webinar on the new global food supply chain. The session saw him present on the subject as well as discuss food safety and the impact of Covid-19 on food supply chains.
Below, he returns to offer insight on the year ahead and how companies can kick on in 2021.
Professionally speaking, what will you remember 2020 for?
It will of course naturally be characterised as the year of Covid, Brexit, lockdowns, Nightingale hospitals (in the UK), economic crashes, soaring death tolls and retail closures.
What I will choose to remember it for is the year we all realised the value of front-line NHS staff, teachers and politicians, the resilience of the global food supply chain, the value of key workers that kept things going, the role of the financial community, for furlough, resilience and for leaders – political and otherwise – who were not perfect, but worked tirelessly to manage through chaos.
2020 was the year of leaders.
How did that affect your job or business personally?
The year was transformational for me, I developed the means to operate every aspect of my business online and delivered another service I had never even contemplated.
- ZeroDefect became a remote service and I delivered complete food safety culture change programmes online as well as supporting food safety crisis for clients.
- Navigation saw me take my coaching and mentoring service online with a massive success as one of my clients was nominated as CEO of the year in his industry.
- Goya Foods saw me running webinars for a number of clients, working with the Institute of Food Science & Technology to develop a Covid-19 hub and joining the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy as an advisor to the UK government on food safety in supply chains.
- TIC networks: I also now run free mental wellbeing webinars every two weeks to support those who have found lockdown a struggle either for themselves or for their remote working teams.
What was the one big achievement or positive your industry can take away from the year?
The resilience of the UK supply chain and fact that it seems it can only be stopped by people choosing to do so. Covid could not stop it but president Macron chose to, for a moment.
How do you think supply chain management and manufacturing will change in 2021 following the impact of Covid-19?
I believe more strongly in the concept of evolution rather than of change. Nothing changes, it just evolves – as we have seen from the Covid-19 virus itself. This is a VUCA world, it is only the pace of evolution that changes, not change itself. I see a continued evolution towards supply chains being increasingly dependent upon external service providers for both services and technology, and Covid has simply changed the pace of this evolution.
It’s also been a year of change in politics, how do you see what’s happening playing a part in trade?
Trade trumps politics for me every time. If there is a particular consumer desire, the supply chain will deliver it regardless of any political enablers or constraints. The supply chain will continue to evolve and adapt to ensure supply meets demand and every single evolution creates an opportunity.
What one piece of advice would you give on how businesses should approach 2021?
Find the path of least resistance to consistency. My advice comes in seven simple steps in ensuring predictable and repeatable outcomes:
- Understand your supply chain and location threats
- Map your supply chain risks and mitigations
- Establish strong equity for all functions (safety, quality, technical, marketing, finance, HR, etc.)
- Ensure brand integrity in the strategy and on the board agenda
- Focus on the conditions that support failure and attend to them rigorously
- Fear change and the conditions it creates for failure
- Plan for continuity, be equally prepared for crisis.
And what would your own New Year’s resolution be, work-related or otherwise?
Balance. Ensuring that my own wellbeing and the wellbeing of my family, team, colleagues and associates gives me the platform to provide a strong service and to share my 40 years of supply chain governance and leadership for the positive benefit of others.
Watch Treacy’s presentation in the full webinar, The New Global Food Supply Chain: Smart Technologies & Food Safety Post-Covid-19 here.
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