The global pandemic has accelerated the breakdown of the longstanding global trade structure, highlighting the fault lines in the existing supply chain paradigms. The earlier paradigm was based on trade liberalization, offshoring of operations, tax-code provisions, and inventory buffering. To adapt to the new reality, COOs will play a crucial role in overhauling the entire operating model of supply chain organizations. They will need to distill insights from data points, distinguish between leading indicators and outliers, and realign their organization around new foundational competencies to manage disruptions.

Maintaining enterprise resiliency will be critical amid heightened levels of economic and political volatility. Leveraging AI and big data will be key to managing rapid spikes and drops in demand, finding new sources of supply rapidly, and rerouting transportation to avoid disruption while carefully managing working capital. These competencies will be essential to thriving in the "next normal."

Maintaining enterprise resiliency will be critical amid heightened levels of economic and political volatility. Leveraging AI and big data will be key to managing rapid spikes and drops in demand, finding new sources of supply rapidly, and rerouting transportation to avoid disruption while carefully managing working capital. These competencies will be essential to thriving in the "next normal."