According to business spend management software company Coupa Software, the majority of supply chain leaders anticipate supply chain challenges to worsen or stay the same over the next year.
In its new survey, The State of Supply Chains: 2022 Reflections and 2023 Priorities, Coupa found that a majority of supply chain leaders don’t anticipate supply chain issues improving in 2023. In fact, 82 percent said they would continue to be challenging or get worse, while 79 percent said their company will be investing in agility and resiliency for their supply chain in the coming year.
While last year saw four out of five organizations experiencing at least one significant supply chain disruption, at least half experienced three or more. Supply chain leaders predicted that food, gas, and computer chips are most at risk for disruption in 2023 and warned that consumers should prepare for sustained impact on those essential items.
The survey respondents said their biggest concerns for the coming year are a lack of sufficient, reliable transportation/shipping capacity (28 percent), continued shortages of critical parts and other goods (33 percent), uncertainty in customer demand (27 percent), and challenges of implementing new supply chain design, especially due to costs and logistics (28 percent).
“Consumers continue to face a barrage of shortages of essential goods and are growing impatient with the continued impact on their daily lives. Over the last twelve months, consumers have faced shortages from tampons to Tylenol and everything in between,” said Dr. Madhav Durbha, vice president of supply chain innovation at Coupa. “With climate change and geopolitical tensions expected to impact food and cause disruptions, now is the time for supply chain leaders to take initiative and be creative as to how they can invest and improve their operations.”
Less than half (40 percent) of all supply chain leaders surveyed said that building healthy supplier relationships was in their top two priorities.