**1.2 Supply chain building blocks**

SCM is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the provision of product and service packages required by the end customers. The network of interconnected businesses and comprises of three major building blocks Viz., structural, logical and informational [2, 3, 5, 6].

**Structural Building Blocks** include Suppliers, Manufacturing/Assembly Plants, Warehouses, Distribution Centers, Retailers/Customers, Logistics Network (inbound and outbound), Customers Orders etc. This can be visualized clearly from, **Figure 3**, a computer manufacturing company like IBM, HP, Dell etc. The relationship and their strength and number of entities drive the supply chain performance.

**Logical building blocks** of a supply chain include both horizontal and vertical functions of a supply chain and the same is shown in **Figure 4**. Logical building blocks include strategic, tactical and operational decisions cutting across various processes like procurement, production, sales and services. Integration of these building blocks across the supply chain network requires suitable organization structure and accountability. Both structural and logical building blocks are connected/integrated through informational building blocks.

**Information building blocks** focus on material requirement planning (MRP), enterprise resource planning (ERP), electronic data interchange (EDI), internet technologies, sensor networks, E-Commerce, E-Markets, E-CRM, Decision Support Software, standards etc.

## **1.3 Supply chain decision spectrum**

Organizations involved in supply chains need to take several decisions are different levels and different processes. A typical decision spectrum is shown in **Figure 5** along with various decisions at different levels. Forecasting is one of the

#### **Figure 3.**

*Structural building blocks of a supply chain [2, 5].*

*Supply Chain Management and Restart of Economy in Post COVID-19 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94207*

**Figure 4.**

*Logical building blocks of a supply chain [5].*

#### **Figure 5.**

*Supply chain decision spectrum [5, 6].*

critical inputs that affects the efficiency and responsiveness of the entire supply chain both in short term and long term.

**Procurement & Inbound Logistics include two** major components via., (i) managing procurements and (ii) manufacturing procurements. Managing procurement tasks comprise of control of inventory, development of quality standards, price negotiation, purchase of goods and services, financial purchases, aligning purchase to the company ethics and policies and disposal of waste. It also assists the organization to formulate strategies regarding criteria to choose suppliers for the company. The company can benefit from waste reduction and preservation of environmental assets, biodiversity and other finite assets. Manufacturing procurement efficiently manages the suppliers for the raw material with focus to obtain cheaper and quality raw materials.

**Production Plan** include safety stock and replenishment decisions and based on trends and market dynamics. If the production activities aren't planned properly there is high chance to face the issues such as shortage of stock and heavy inventory. During COVID-19 sudden lockdown was imposed across the globe which has hit the production lines badly because of unexpected gap between demand and supply for essential products.

**Outbound Logistics** include demand management and order fulfillment. It takes care of fulfillment of demand of goods and services of customers at right time and quantity with better responsiveness. Demand management helps in understanding important aspects of customer demand by better forecasting of requirements and enhanced visibility across the supply chain. It also assists in enhance customers' service, managing and improving inventory levels, enhance inventory planning and optimize promotion and trade planning, develop sales or demand forecasts. The main objectives of order fulfillment are to effectively help in faster order processing, faster order delivery to the customers' and frequent fulfillment of products. Network designing and process designing are two components of order fulfillment which assists an organization in meeting its order fulfillment goals while minimizing the delivery costs.

Order fulfillment also takes into consideration of networking strategies such as allocating inventories in the physical buildings, transportation strategies such as trying new processes and carriers and making changes in the distribution centers. Therefore, the order fulfillment considers cross-functionality of the organization which builds coordination among main suppliers and customers.

**Sales & Post Sales service takes care of needs of the supply chain stakeholders like** dealers wholesalers and retail outlets. Decent long-term relationships with the retailer and wholesalers, frequent inventory inspection/management and capturing customer feedback are key components to understanding the demand of the product in the market.

There are two major aspects to be considered in post-sales. They are Customer relationship management (CRM), customer service management (CSM). CRM helps in understanding how to provide tailor-made products and services to meet the needs and demands of a customer. CRM through supply chain network and through the delivery of products builds competitive edge of a company against their competitors. The main responsibility of a customer service management lies in refining the relationship with the customers. Customer service management in the SCM building blocks effectively focus on managing customer service on the basis of customer's preferences, tastes, and perceptions to deliver best of products and services.

#### **1.4 Principles of supply chain management**

Making rational decisions in the context of supply chain management is a complex one. To help managers decide how to proceed, [7] have suggested the following seven principles which were based on the stories of successful organizations in business. These principles include the following [7]:


*Supply Chain Management and Restart of Economy in Post COVID-19 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94207*

5.Strategic sourcing

6.Use of SC wide technology strategy

7.Use of channel wide performance measures

**Principle 1**: Adapt supply chain serve customers based on their needs.

**Principle 2**: Use customized logistics network to serve requirements at lower cost based on segment.

**Principle 3**: Observe the market trends and plan to meet the demand across the supply chain consistently with suitable forecasts and optimal allocation of resources.

**Principle 4**: Use postponement or delayed differentiation in meeting the uncertain demand of the customer with better speed/response.

**Principle 5**: Use strategic alliances for sourcing of various raw materials/inputs at lower cost and better quality.

**Principle 6**: Use supply chain-wide technology strategy that supports multiple levels of decision making and gives a clear view of the flow of products, services, and information.

**Principle 7**: Use channel-spanning performance measures to measure success in fulfilling the end-user demand efficiently and effectively.

Many organizations around the work have benefited by using these principles and able to meet the customer demand effectively and profitably by strengthening their supply chains. Further, organizations have pursued various initiatives like integration of supply chain activities and these have resulted in improved asset utilization, reduced cost, and created competitive advantage on one hand and improved revenues on the other hand.

#### **1.5 Performance measures of supply chains**

Measuring supply chain performance is one of the most difficult tasks in business due to involvement of many stakeholders and different types of activities that they perform in different geographic locations and contexts. However, both industry practioners and researchers have evolved different performance measures which are based on cost, quality, delivery, efficiency, sustainability etc. Some of the mainly used performance measures include delivery performance to request, upside production flexibility/material availability, total supply chain costs, Cash-to-Cash Cycle Time, return on investment, inventory turns, fill rate, customer service level, revenue growth etc.

#### **2. Methodology**

In this study, we have adopted a generic method for literature search and industry practices in the area of supply chain management in different sectors, reports on economic development, global value chains, world trade and reports on COVID-19. Literature search has been carried out using key words like COVID-19, Supply Chain Management, economy recovery, world trade, global value chain, world GDP, healthcare from the databases like PubMed, Google Scholar, EBSCO, ENKI, ABI Info, etc. The search does not include other databases. Apart from these we have also used information regarding various stimulus packages and sectoral specific schemes for economic recovery in different countries. We have used the information from firms like McKinsey, The Economist, Gartner Inc., World economic forum, World

trade organization etc. The author's own research and consulting experience in the area of supply chain management and healthcare management. Apart from these we have also gathered the information from experts from different fields like policy makers, industry practitioners, consultants, medical physicians from healthcare sector at global level. We have excluded country specific details in the study.

## **3. Supply chain ecosystem and frameworks**

Supply chains are in practice for a very long time in different forms facilitating the trade [5]. After world war II (WW-II), the importance of supply chains has increased significantly and from 1960s its influence has increased duo to developments in computers and information technology. Further, post 1990s due to advent of internet technologies and globalization of trade, the importance of supply chains has increased many fold and the GDP of the world has increased significantly [5, 6, 8] and the same is given in Section 3. Supply chain ecosystem and framework is brief described in the following sub sections.

#### **3.1 Supply chain ecosystem**

**Figure 6** shows various stakeholders and their relationship in the context of supply chain ecosystem [9]. Supply chain ecosystem is a complex network connecting various stakeholders through suitable technology platforms and incentive systems. This include logistics service providers like third party, forth party logistics providers, reverse and returns, inbound and outbound. Transportation modes would include roadways, railways, airways and seaways. Other services like warehousing, courier and freight services and material handling. SC ecosystem would include platforms, software across different industry verticals like automobile, fast consumer goods, industrial goods, energy, health and other services.

SC platforms are very critical and include connectivity management, application management and data management. Connectivity management include WAN, Wi-Fi, Hotspot, Bluetooth, RFID etc. Due to increase in complexity of SC network, the importance of software has increased significantly and most of the activities

**Figure 6.** *Supply chain ecosystem [9].*

*Supply Chain Management and Restart of Economy in Post COVID-19 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94207*

**Figure 7.** *SCOR model with traditional and digital focus [10].*

are managed through software tools. Software management in the context of SC include network management, streaming, data management, security, internet of things, asset management, asset maintenance, warehouse management, building management, fleet management etc. Advances in information and communication technologies like GPS has further improved the performance and control of supply chain activities. Due to rich data and advances like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine learning (ML) are facilitating in more rational and timely decisions across the supply chain.

## **3.2 SCOR model**

Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model is very widely used industry standard model developed by supply chain council in 1996 [10]. SCOR model follows a hierarchical structure and has three levels. Level 1 include five process types viz., plan, source, make, delivery and return. The elements of SCOR model is shown in **Figure 7** along with major functions and role of digitization at each stage of the supply chain. Level II include process categories which defines the configuration and level III include process activities in terms of inputs and outputs and performance measures. SCOR model employs five performance measures: reliability, responsiveness, flexibility, costs and asset management. In summary, the traditional SCOR Model has five processes, five performance measures and three levels describing SC comprehensively. Due to technological advancements in data capturing and analysis tools, the digitization across SC has attracted many stakeholders in improving the supply chain performance significantly. Digitization of supply chain functions at each stage is also shown in **Figure 7**. The most interesting and important element is handling of returns across various industry verticals. Returns in the supply chain have assumed significance due to electronic commerce industry. Of late, AI and Blockchain technologies are playing a critical role in managing the returns across various industry verticals by tracking the product usage history and other relevant information.

SCOR model covers the following activities:

• Covers all interactions of **customers** from order entry to final invoice/ payment.


SCOR model allows environmental measures like carbon emissions, air pollution, liquid and solid waste, percent recycled waste etc. SCOR model connects emissions to the processes at source and provide a structure for measuring environmental performance and improvement areas. The hierarchical nature SCOR model allows strategic environmental footprints to be translated to specific activities and targets.
