超越关税：供应链再造势在必行

Tariffs are accelerating businesses’ operationsoverhaul. Winning in today’s disrupted world demands By Hernan Saenz, Adam Borchert, and Tracy Parker Beyond Tariffs: The Supply C hain R einvention I mperative At a Glance Tariffs are the latest disruption to a global supply chain system designed for a politico-economic Three-quarters of executives are juggling at least six competing supply chain priorities, Supply chain redesign and optimization will require strategic trade-offs, and the right answer Leading companies start with their strategic goals, frame the operations equation as an Executives across industries are coming to a sobering conclusion as their businesses navigate moretariffs: This is yet another massive hit to a supply chain system that no longer works, because it was built The “just-in-time” approach to producing and delivering goods performed well for decades during theglobalization era. Companies could make products in the lowest-cost location, ship them from farawaysites, and sell them everywhere. Supply chains were linear and predictable. The provenance and carbon None of those things are true anymore. Supply chain disruptions piled up in recent years with thedevastating Covid-19 pandemic, global semiconductor shortage, inflation, more frequent extreme weatherevents, and geopolitical frictions in an increasingly post-global world. At the same time, executives are Executives are applying what they’ve learned over the past few years to better manage throughturbulence. Tariffs are simply the latest disruption forcing decisive action to protect business operations In anticipation of new tariffs, companies recently began reallocating capital to supply chain andtechnology investments, with debt repayments and dividends taking a backseat. That’s according to aBain survey of global operations executives in early January, before the US enacted new tariffs under a Beyond Tariffs: The Supply C hain R einvention I mperative According to the survey, the most common actions executive teams are taking include diversifying thesupply chain, expanding the supplier base, considering price increases, and relocating manufacturing However, the most effective leadership teams aren’t just pursuing one-time actions to mitigate the latesttariff threats. Recognizing that tariffs have once again exposed an outdated system, these leaders are also The traditional formula that governed supply chain decisions no longer suffices. Reducing costs,optimizing inventory, improving service and quality, and driving growth remain fundamental priorities.But now, supply chains must also become more resilient, sustainable, and highly responsive to changing CEOs and operations leadership teams are struggling to manage the ballooning number of competingpriorities. Around 75% of respondents in our latest survey rated six or more priorities as “extremely” or Figure 1:To mitigate tariff risks, most companies are adjusting their supply Beyond Tariffs: The Supply C hain R einvention I mperative Winning in this new world will come down to making the right strategic trade-offs. Those trade-offs willbe more complex than what most operations teams have encountered in the last few decades. Supplychain optimization is no longer primarily an engineering problem that can be solved through a set of The upshot: Supply chain reinvention is now an urgent transformation imperative for most companies— Three keys for executives In our work helping companies worldwide to revamp their supply chains and operations, we’ve seen the 1. Start by thinking without constraints.Leading companies are redesigning their supply chains byworking backward from the ideal future state. They’re not getting bogged down by incremental fixes, Faced with mounting geopolitical risks, the leaders of a technology equipment manufacturer realized thecompany’s reliance on China and Taiwan posed a serious threat to its supply chain resilience. At the sametime, the company was under pressure to meet ambitious sustainability goals and to comply with emerging Using scenario analysis, the company quantified the anticipated effects of various supply chain changeson costs, resilience, customer willingness to pay higher prices, and carbon emissions. The result was a Beyond Tariffs: The Supply C hain R einvention I mperative strategically sound nearshoring approach that not only mitigated risk but also delivered financialupside—a 2% to 3% annual revenue boost while potentially avoiding 2% in additional costs. Nevertheless,enacting the plan took courage: It requires moving much of the company’s manufacturing closer to core Supply chain reinvention is now an urgent transformationimperative for most companies—one that will require a very 2. Solve the operations equation as a multivariate system.The solution won’t come from running asingle algorithm or fixing one variable in isolation. In fact, that’s been the failing pattern since Covid:Management teams have tended