News Room

Jonathan Cotliar knew he was ahead of the curve four years ago when he joined Science 37, a company that supports virtual clinical trials conducted mostly online. The firm in Los Angeles, California, was growing slowly before March, receiving about a dozen calls a week from potential clients. But since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Science 37 has been running at fever pitch.

Often, a crisis brings about a re-evaluation of basic systems.  As the world wrestles with the multi-faceted impacts of COVID-19, the global supply chain has come under very close scrutiny.  

The rug has been pulled out from beneath us. Doing things the same way we’ve always done them will no longer serve us, so we can’t simply put it back in its place. In fact, the definition of pulling the rug out from underneath someone is that doing so causes their plans to fail, because they have little recourse or time to respond adequately. It’s a fitting metaphor for the world’s supply chains, which have always had to figure out how to respond rapidly in the face of rug-tugging disruptions, although none at the scope of the current one. We can count on disruption occurring again, in some form, so the only way to respond is to build in the supply chain agility necessary to be able to respond more effectively next time our rug is yanked.

If there’s any certainty in an uncertain world economy right now, it’s that the coronavirus crisis is shaking up the way global businesses think about their supply chains.

Once upon a time—yet merely weeks ago—chasing technological trends and making investments in innovation were considered discretionary to attaining a competitive edge in business.