ARTICLE
30 September 2020

Accelerating Trends: Assessing The Supply Chain In A Post-Pandemic World

FL
Foley & Lardner

Contributor

Foley & Lardner LLP looks beyond the law to focus on the constantly evolving demands facing our clients and their industries. With over 1,100 lawyers in 24 offices across the United States, Mexico, Europe and Asia, Foley approaches client service by first understanding our clients’ priorities, objectives and challenges. We work hard to understand our clients’ issues and forge long-term relationships with them to help achieve successful outcomes and solve their legal issues through practical business advice and cutting-edge legal insight. Our clients view us as trusted business advisors because we understand that great legal service is only valuable if it is relevant, practical and beneficial to their businesses.
This report identifies resiliency and innovation considerations for manufacturers and provides frameworks and tools for you to evaluate how those considerations impact your business.
Worldwide Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Table of Contents

This report identifies resiliency and innovation considerations for manufacturers and provides frameworks and tools for you to evaluate how those considerations impact your business.

Section 1:Rethinking China
How manufacturers will analyze right-shoring to consider the benefits and costs of a shift in supply chains away from China and toward other countries.

Section 2:Resiliency Review
How manufacturers will review processes to ensure a stable and resilient supply chain, focusing on traceability and continuity of supply through diversification or other viable strategies.

Section 3:Innovation & Efficiency
The accelerated use of new technologies and business processes to facilitate innovation and efficiencies.

Click here to download the full PDF.

Even before COVID-19, companies were considering whether China continued to make sense for their offshore manufacturing operations.

The U.S.-China trade war caused a sudden and substantial increase in the cost of imported Chinese goods, which catalyzed a shift in U.S. supply chains away from China and toward other countries. In 2019, the total manufactured goods imported to the United States from low-cost countries in Asia (including China), as a percentage of U.S. manufacturing gross output, declined for the first time since 2011.1 This decline is attributed to reduced imports from China and appears to be correlated with the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.

The global COVID-19 pandemic accelerated and compounded these trends by exposing additional supply chain vulnerabilities. Chief among them was an overreliance on a single, primary source of supply. As some observers correctly note, companies that previously diversified their international supplies in response to the U.S.-China trade war were better positioned to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. But, when a company decides to reduce its reliance on China, where does it go?

To determine the right mix of geographic locations for its operations, a company might engage in a "right-shoring" or "best-shoring" analysis, in which a company assesses the most appropriate and effective geographic location or locations for its processes. Right-shoring is a fact-specific analysis driven by commercial, operational, tax, legal, and regulatory conditions in that company's industry and for that company's particular product.

Click here for more on right-shoring and considerations for rethinking China.

Click Here to Download the PDF Report

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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