key: cord-0755786-zcgeqdf2
authors: Sharma, Amalesh; Adhikary, Anirban; Bikash Borah, Sourav
title: Covid-19’s Impact on Supply Chain Decisions: Strategic Insights for NASDAQ 100 Firms using Twitter Data
date: 2020-06-12
journal: J Bus Res
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.05.035
sha: e810618c7806dffec0d7d79891f91325a8609757
doc_id: 755786
cord_uid: zcgeqdf2

The coronavirus pandemic is having a clear impact on the supply chains of virtually all manufacturers, retailers, and wholesalers. As the world attempts to navigate through this difficult time, most companies are struggling to maintain a steady flow of required goods and services. Whether it is frozen foods and grocery items (i.e., toilet papers), or ventilators and masks, or even the services (i.e., clinic visits), the supply chain has been facing multiple obstacles. Most models and frameworks built in the extant literature are not been able to capture these disruptions and as such, firms are not having proper strategies to deal with. For firms with complex supply chains (i.e., manufacturing, retailing), it is indeed critical to identify strategies to deal with such a crisis. In this paper, we intend to offer strategic insights in terms of major issues firms are facing and strategic options firms are contemplating. We rely on the twitter data for NASDAQ 100 firms to generate themes regarding the issues faced by the firms and the strategies they are adopting using text analytics tools. We find that firms are facing challenges in terms of demand-supply mismatch, technology, development of a resilient supply chain. Moreover, moving beyond profitability, firms are experiencing difficulties to construct a sustainable supply chain. We provide futuristic strategic recommendations for the rebuilding of the supply chain.

As the world manages to contain Covid-19 outbreak, various countries and various firms are focusing on treating those infected, firms protecting their employees and collectively attempting to develop vaccines, medication, and effective care mechanisms to reduce the global health impact. As the situation evolves, it is clear that economic, social, and emotional costs will be huge which will create norms for "new normal". For many countries and many firms, the inability to respond to the Covid-19 outbreak lies in its supply-chaintransportation of goods whether it is masks or ventilators or grocery items or even services (e.g., visiting clinic) (Ranney, Griffeth and Jha 2020) . Equally worrisome is the lack of adequate PPE (personal protective equipment) for frontline health care workers, including respirators, gloves, face shields, gowns, and hand sanitizers. In Italy, health care workers experienced high rates of infection and death 1 partly because of inadequate access to PPE. Recent estimates in the United States suggest that we will need far more respirators and surgical masks than that are currently available 2 . This scarcity is for nothing but inadequate supply chain-for instance, China has been producing approximately half the world's face masks 3 before Covid-19 was detected. As the infection spread across China, their exports came to a halt. Now, as the infection spreads globally and transmission in China slows, China is shipping masks but the supply chain in other countries is not able to receive it properly due to Covid-19's effects on multiple intermediaries in the supply chain. The Covid-19 outbreak has revealed the vulnerabilities and fragilities in global supply chains across sectors 4 and industries (Ivanov and Dolgui 2020 )-unavailability of hand sanitizers, non-medical masks, PPE, basic consumption items such as bread, eggs, milk, or long waiting time for visits to clinics are the examples of vulnerabilities and fragilities in global supply chains. Most firms today are adopting reactive strategies focusing strictly on maintaining supply and meeting customer needs; this may not be a long-term strategy. Firms need to evaluate their supply chain strategies, supply chain designs, and supply chain dependencies to avoid perceptual reaction to future pandemics and proactively get ready for future unpredictable, yet inevitable, disruptions.

Given the challenges associated with the issue, it is important to understand which direction global supply chains may evolve and possible solutions that are being looked upon by firms. This issue is challenging as today's supply chain is incredibly complex with myriad partners spread across multiple geographies as part of an unprecedented, intertwined global trade ecosystem 5 . Most firms lack visibility beyond tier 1 (or its direct suppliers). Although they are relatively small-sized, tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers can quickly and significantly disrupt the entire supply chain. These challenges initiated our investigation where we focused on understanding the conversation on the web related to supply chain challenges during Covid-19, potential strategies firms are enacting, and what the futuristic supply chain strategies and design be.

To identify the supply-chain issues experienced by various companies and the strategies they are implementing, we rely on their tweets. The official twitter handle name was accessed from each company's website. There were twitter handles posted in non-English languages (such as Amgen Inc., Analog Devices, etc.). We have excluded companies with non-English twitter handles and also those companies that do not have official twitter handle (Chae and Park 2018) . After excluding all non-relevant twitter handles, we collected data from 89 firms. We looked at relevant tweets from January 23 rd , 2020 (when Hubei province initiated locked down) till April 30 th , 2020, comprising of 41986 tweets.

We also collected tweets from users. Multiple criteria were applied to screen the tweets. #supplychain along with the mention of any of the NASDAQ firm's twitter handle was given as a criterion. These tweets comprised of data till 7 th May 2020. A total of 30500 observations after removing duplicate and irrelevant (for example, consistent with the extant literature (Chae 2015) , we find that large proportion of tweets were for jobs associated with supply chain; we have removed them as these tweets are not relevant to our investigation) tweets were collected and were analyzed similarly. To get the scenario of the entire industry along with the firms of our interest, we have collected timeline data from some prominent supply chain professionals and news portals. We started with 30 such accounts but were able to collect data from 26 twitter handles due to privacy restrictions in some accounts. A total of 63987 tweets was collected. We had excluded the tweets posted before 23 rd January 2020. Our data has 7359 tweets from prominent supply chain professionals.

In total, we have 41986 tweets from Nasdaq 100 firms, 35000 tweets from individual users, and 7359 tweets from supply chain professionals. We have cleaned the data by removing URLs, emojis, punctuations, commonly used words (stopwords), etc. Table 1 highlights the most commonly used words by NASDAQ 100 companies, Figure 1 represents the daily frequency of tweets and Figure 2 represents the word cloud of 100 most frequent words.

[Insert Table 1 From the data analysis, it is clear that Covid-19 is among the top 10 most frequently used words. To develop deeper insights, we constructed unigram, bigram, and trigram. Unigram breaks the sequence of characterless into individual one that highlights how many times a particular word appears; a bigram consists of a sequence of two words; and a trigram consists of a sequence of three words (Chen, He, Xu, Gey and Meggs 1997) .

Unigrams, bigrams, and trigrams provide us required information regarding the supply-chain aspects that are getting attention in tweeter. Figure 3 represents the top 10 unigrams, bigrams, and trigrams.

[Insert Figure 3 about here]

We also performed a topic analysis to get topics and relevant keywords related to each topic to get more insights from the data and generate themes. Some of the most relevant topics identified through the analysis are 'technology' and 'support'. Based on such topics, we segregated tweets. Once segregated, we revisited the original tweets and finalized our themes. Based on the findings, we came across four major themes.

Our text analysis results reveal some interesting insights associated with the supply chain. From the multiple tweets we analyzed, we find the following themes.

Demand uncertainty is one of the fundamental challenges reflected in most tweets. While some sectors have seen a decline in demand, others have seen a sudden spike in demand. As people started following "Stay at home" orders some sectors such as automobiles, crude oil, and transportation have seen a decline in demands. Contrary to that, most technology companies have experienced an increase in demand. Companies have faced a sudden surge in mitigating these surge in demands. Multiple tweets highlighted the challenges faced by companies. PSD Global, a management consulting firm, tweeted (on 7 th May 2020), "The Pandemic Lockdown & StayHome have created unparalleled logistics for #SupplyChain management. Similarly, Biogen tweeted (on 29 th April 2020), "Food insecurity is a daily concern for many.

During #COVID19, demand is rising. Here's how our partners @Communityserv & @Gr8BosFoodBank are adjusting to keep up with demand. #InThisTogether #Boston". Firms operating in the healthcare sector have seen a sudden surge in demand that is challenging to fulfill in a short period. As Cerner tweeted (on 15 th April 2020), "Across the globe, health care leaders are responding to the surge of testing and treatment demands associated with the virus. Cerner's COVID-19 Surge Capacity Guide aims to help our clients plan, supply, staff and operate amid the spread of this virus". Keeping fleets organized & attuned to driver safety, stress & morale". Similarly, a sudden change in demand may create challenges for matching supply and demand in a short time. As reflected in multiple tweets, companies are forced to match demand-supply equations even on a daily basis.

Technological challenges during Covid-19: Technology has emerged as an important factor that determines the success or failure of a firm during Covid-19. However, our analyses reveal that all firms may not be at a similar level of technology readiness. There are multiple concerns associated with the use of technology. Apart from technology readiness, security breaches are also a common concern expressed in multiple tweets. Among the technologies adopted, firms are adopting multiple technologies that can give them visibility across the value chain as well as those which help in increasing efficiency. Tweeter data shows that companies are looking for solutions to gain visibility across the value chain. A tweet from R2 logistics highlights (May 5 th , 2020), "Full visibility of your #SupplyChain is just a click away. With R2's #TMS and reporting features, customers can view their entire #logistics network from any device". Similarly, multiple companies have shown the use of technology to increase efficiencies. As the Cisco system tweeted (3 rd April 2020), "Digital solutions help retailers maintain agility to navigate supply chain disruption". Multiple companies have also highlighted innovative logistic solutions they are using. JD.com, China's largest online retailer has tweeted (on 20 th February 2020), "As #logistics operations struggle to deliver goods in #China due to #COVID19 @JD_Corporate is deploying delivery staff, autonomous shuttles and drones to deliver medical supplies, food, and commercial cargo". Many firms are also focusing on IoT based systems, reflected in our trigram as well.

Building a Resilient Supply Chain: As Covid-19 challenges the entire value chain, there is growing discussion among firms as well as practitioners regarding how to create a resilient supply chain. Dipanjali Ghosh, President NASSCOM tweeted (6 th April 2020), "Today we have 90%+ employees working from home, with only critical staff on campus to ensure no disruption to clients' business. With the help of Gov't, the industry has shown tremendous resilience and moved to the #WFH model. India and Indian IT will emerge only stronger!".

Similarly, Worday Inc. tweeted (on 24 th April 2020), "Operational and personal resiliency are more important than ever." Multiple tweets show that there are also suggestions made to improve supply chain resilience.

Common among them is the use of technology such as AI and blockchain-based technologies which may help supply chains become more resilient. Others suggest that greater collaboration among value chain members are required to create a more resilient supply chain. Collaborations have also taken place among competitors to provide greater value to all members. Tealbook-a procurement and supplier partner has tweeted (on 7 th May 2020), "We're learning during the #COVID19 crisis that collaboration between industries & competitors allows everyone to provide their greatest value". Liberty Global tweeted (on 27 th March 2020), "Our network is performing a more critical role and we are committed to playing our part in keeping the country connected. @VirginMediaCorp CTIO, Jeanie York, explains how our network is staying resilient in the face of rising demand".

shifted organizational focus towards a sustainable supply chain. Not only organizations are focused on maintaining economic sustainability, but multiple tweets show that organizations are now facing challenges associated with social sustainability as well. The CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick tweeted (on April 14th, 2020) "My #1 priority is the safety and health of our employees and community". Similarly, Adobe tweeter handle published a blog (on April 25, 2020) about the effective communication strategies in healthcare 6 . Adobe has also postponed Adobe Summit EMEA which was supposed to take place in London on May 13 th and 14 th , highlighting the safety of their community as a top priority. Multiple other tweets that highlighted employee health and wellbeing, helping employees to cope up with remote working conditions, skill improvements, etc.

have become a priority. Not only social sustainability but organizations have also started focusing on environmental sustainability across the supply chain. Multiple solutions primarily based on technological advancement has been proposed by multiple companies to reduce greenhouse gas emission.

Based on the above discussion, we highlight that firms across the globe are dealing with four major challenges: demand-supply mismatch, technological challenges, sustainable supply chain challenges, and building a resilient supply chain.

Given the supply chain issues and some of the actions firms are implementing to tackle those issues, we provide implementable and futuristic supply chain strategies that may help the firms overcome supply chain challenges in this turbulent time and prepare a more sustainable supply chain design to absorb any future shocks.

Reimagining and redesigning supply chain: Most global firms' supply chain design is based on the assumption that it is just relationships that allow the material to flow freely across partners and countries enabling them to source, produce, and distribute products at the lowest-cost locations around the world.

However, a pandemic caused by Covid-19 warns that rare events may disrupt the supply chain. Greater agility, adoption to changing contexts and ability to redesign the supply chain in the situations of rare events will help organizations to prevent damages caused by pandemics in general, Covid-19 in specific.

Supply chain responsiveness is very critical in the event of any rare event.

However, making supply chain responsive to rare events such as Covid-19 is not easy as the systems are not trained to absorb the shocks provided by such rare events. One of the ways to make the supply chain responsive is to transform the supply chain processes to intelligent workflows. By doing so, a firm will be able to silo processes and mechanize the working procedures leading towards uncovering efficiencies across a network of processes and partners. A firm can transform all verticals into an intelligent workflow starting from demand planning and manufacturing execution to order orchestration and fulfillment. This will allow the processes, people, and technology to interactbridging the current gap in a firm's ability to intuit the changes in the environment.

3. Relying on technology: Firms need to leverage the power of AI and other emerging technologies. Such dependencies on advanced technologies can help firms navigate through the supply chain vulnerabilities caused by Covid-19 and assist in business continuity amid disruption and uncertainty.

Including automation, blockchain, IoT, and edge computing in its supply chain design and management may help firms turn unanticipated into the envisioned. Some of the critical implications of technology on supply chain visibility include a. Use of machine learning and AI to convert unstructured data and signals from the market in real-time to meaningful insights and predictions related to disruptions and visibility.

b. Advanced technologies such as control tower can help firms achieve end-to-end visibility, reducing the vulnerabilities and uncertain impact of any pandemics or rare events. The recent analysis highlights the importance of visibility into the full supplier network: While only 163 of Fortune 1000 companies have tier 1 suppliers in China, 938 have tier 2 suppliers in China, demonstrating a major impact to business 7 .

Supply chain disruptions in terms of service, products, and operational risks limit a firm's ability to continue operations and serve customers. Dynamic response in terms of rapid assessments of the systems, signals, and processes can help a firm identify the capabilities and respective issues in the capabilities assisting the firm to alleviate immediate pressures and proactively navigate global and local disruptions. 5. Developing a culture of collaboration: While collaboration in the supply chain has been emphasized by multiple scholars (Cao and Zhang 2011) , in reality, most supply chains are transactional in nature 8 . However, such practices will not be beneficial during and after Covid-19. Developing a culture of collaboration across its supply network and even with competitors, a firm can engage partners in datasharing and joint problem solving which can rapidly join forces to understand the impact of disruptions across their joint supply chains. Such data-sharing platforms along with AI-augmented techniques can analyze data in real-time, support scenario planning, and help firms make more informed decisions.

6. Diversification and dynamic adoption: Some firms have developed and implemented supply chain risk management and business continuity strategies through diversifying their supply chains from a geographic perspective to reduce the supply-side risks from any one country or region. They have a low concentration of suppliers (i.e., multi-sourced key commodities or strategic components) that reduces their reliance on any one supplier, and they had considered inventory strategy to buffer against supply chain disruption. These firms are somehow able to mitigate the negative effects of disruption to a large extent. Another set of firms have a strong relationship with their suppliers in a diversified pattern, have visibility that signals risks, and drives actions based on priorities. Such firms have developed agility within their production and distribution networks to quickly adapt and reconfigure and maintain supply to global demand. Such firms have invested in supply chain planning and control tower solutions to better sense and respond, and even predict, supply chain issues. However, firms that are largely reliant on single geography or a single supplier for key products are the firms suffering the most during Covid-19. These are the firms that do not have visibility of their extended supply chain, no technology in place to monitor the disruption in the supply network, lack flexible logistics networks to ensure the flow of goods effectively. Hence, the main learning Covid-19 is providing to the global supply chain is to diversify the production, sourcing, and logistics, and adopt dynamically through the reconfiguration of the supply chain such that external shocks cannot disrupt the supply chain.

The current strategies adopted by global corporations and their rationale indicates that there is a dire need of developing forward-looking supply chain strategies such as a. Reevaluate sourcing strategy in real-time. Change network design strategies wherever require weighing the level of risk the firm can tolerate against the amount of operational flexibility and relational benefits it wants to achieve. b. Integrate AI and deep learning-based tools in the supply chain decision framework to provide signals regarding disruptions and visibility such that corrective actions can be taken.

c. Develop scenario based supply chain models, develop optimization routines through digital twins to provide both the immediate assessment and longer-term ability to continually evaluate the fine balance between lean operations and risk mitigation.

8. Focus on sustainable supply chain: While it is known for quite some time that sustainable supply chain practices consist of economic, environmental, and social aspects, till now, firms have put only limited emphasis on the same (Vilena and Gioia 2020). Covid-19 has however forced companies to put greater emphasis on this aspect. Health and wellbeing of not only its employees but those who work for a supplier's suppliers are also vital for firms and without a sustainable approach to supply chain, firms may not be able to effectively combat the effects of the virus on the supply chain.

The supply chain is the backbone of any country's economy as a majority of goods and services flow through the supply chain partners. Supply chains have become highly sophisticated and vital to the competitiveness of many companies 9 . But their interlinked, global nature also makes them increasingly vulnerable to a range of risks, with more potential points of failure and less margin of error for absorbing delays and disruptions 10 . A decades-long focus on supply chain optimization to minimize costs, reduce inventories, and drive up asset utilization has removed buffers and flexibility to absorb delays and disruptions 11 . The effect of Covid-19 on the supply chain that leads to issues in manufacturing, distribution, and retailing has exposed the dire need for proactive strategies. As firms move through the current crisis, firms will realize the value of intelligent workflows, self-correcting and smart supply chain, implications of AI and augmented techniques, and a forward-looking strategic approach. Tomorrow's successful company will be the one that has a dynamically optimized supply network with preparation and readiness to address the next disruption---whether the next wave of Covid-19 or a new threat to business practices. Again, on the bright side, Covid-19 has shifted focus back to the sustainable supply chain which may become our new normal. 

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Insights from hashtag# supplychain and Twitter Analytics: Considering Twitter and Twitter data for supply chain practice and research

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Viability of intertwined supply networks: extending the supply chain resilience angles towards survivability. A position paper motivated by COVID-19 outbreak

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A more sustainable supply chain companies tend to focus on their toptier suppliers, but the real risks come lower down