The resilience of global supply chains to disruptions: COVID-19 and the Adidas case

In the last decades, globalization determined a major evolution in international trade, intensifying the degree of economic interconnection and integration between nations. As a consequence, global supply chains are increasingly widespread, with companies operating in different parts of the world and whose networks branch out to several countries. Offshoring strategies are increasingly exploited to reduce labor costs and increase efficiency. Customers’ growing need for expedited and superior product delivery stressed the necessity of a superior level of collaboration among all supply chain parties, including manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors. Supply chain management became essential in order to achieve quick coordination of resources, goods, and services obtained from many partners both domestically and internationally, with the ultimate goal of creating higher value for the final customer. Therefore, supply chain complexity grew, and globalization and trade liberalization amplified the vulnerability of supply chain management. The increasing uncertainty and variability of supply chain networks intensified companies’ risk exposure, and this may result in supply chain disruptions. Starting from a description of supply chain, supply chain management and its evolutions, this thesis aims to analyze the risks and disruptions that today characterize global supply chains, investigating how companies mitigate disruptions to maintain supply chain resilience. In particular, it has been analyzed the effect that the Covid-19 disruption had on companies’ supply chain operations. The final case study is dedicated to Adidas company, focusing on the European market, with an analysis of the Covid-19 impact on the company’s supply chain and the strategy adopted by the brand to cope with this disruption. The analysis was conducted through interviews with managers of Adidas’ supply chain department of the company’s corporate office in Amsterdam.