Managing the risks in the clothing supply chain considering the coronavirus pandemic

Abstract

This paper examines the systemic and complex influences of the 2020 Coronavirus epidemic on the supply chains (SCs) of international clothing companies through a global business risk management perspective. The Coronavirus pandemic has triggered supply and demand disturbance risks that strongly affect supply chain (SC) management, signifying a necessity to develop the agility to alleviate such risks. This study revealed that the lean-SC management model is inadequate due to the dearth of transparency in the SCs caused by the growing demand uncertainty detected even before the Coronavirus pandemic. Although agile-SC management copes with this issue by improving the purchaser-supplier relations and communication to enhance information exchange, this model also requires a related rise in business stock and inventory costs. Hence, the paper provides several strategies that companies can implement to manage the risks and identify main fields for future studies, including the parties in the clothing SCs both downstream and upstream.