A Technology Enabled Framework for Mitigating Risk during Supply chain disruptions in a pandemic scenario

At present supply chains are dynamic and interactive in nature which integrates suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and consumers. An important objective of supply chain management is to ensure that each supply chain partner is in the coordination with others so that supply chain potential and enhanced surplus can be realized in sales. In general, this coordination breaks due to distrust, misinformation, poor logistics and transportation infrastructure; however, in specific cases like Covid-19, it arises due to uncertainties caused by various types of risks such as delays and disruptions. During pandemic Covid-19 global supply chains have been distorted badly due to multiple lockdowns and country specific decisions to contain the spread of coronavirus. For dealing with such pandemic situation in future, we have learned and proposed some of the strategies from literature and practice that a supply chain manager can think of to minimize supply chain disruptions during a pandemic. These supply chain strategies include Resilience, Outsourcing/Offshoring, Agility, and Digitalization. For helping in decision making to the practitioners, we have applied Best Worst Method (BWM) to evaluate these strategies during pandemic times and found that Digitalization strategy (0.574) has been most differentiating among the proposed four strategies in a pandemic scenario; whereas, Outsourcing/Offshoring strategy is most hampered/ineffective during such times.