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As delivery trucks rumble out of Pfizer’s Michigan plant with an escort from U.S. Marshals, they are also under the watchful eye of FedEx employees. Each box of vaccines is equipped with Bluetooth and GPS sensors to monitor their location and temperature. “I refer to them as guardian angels,” said Richard Smith, regional president of the Americas for the shipping giant. “They are using the technology to have eyes on every single one of them to be alerted to any potential failure.”

For the second instalment of our 2020–21 speaker series, we had the pleasure of joining Dr. Opher Baron, Professor of Operations Management, from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. He shared his journey creating a Canadian marketplace for personal protective equipment (PPE) to help bridge the crucial supply chain gaps that swept across the country during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One defining aspect of the pharmaceutical industry is its high exposure to negative shocks—product recalls, tornados that shut down production lines, Phase III failures, you name it. As my thinking about some of these shocks has grown over time, I’ve come to realize some shocks may hit twice—the second time being the moment a sub-par decision is made in an attempt to recover from the original hit. With stakes being so high, it seems particularly important for leaders in this industry to remain aware that they are not immune to the perils of reactive decision making.