SupplyChain Magazine December 2020 | Page 126

BAYER

Michele Palumbo , Head of Supply Chain Management at Bayer Italy , discusses the challenges of COVID-19 and the way technology is shaping the future of the supply chain

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T he arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic sent shockwaves through global supply chains this year , with plant closures and supply shortages leading to major disruptions . This led many organisations to rethink the way they operate , choosing digital solutions to enable more visible , and easier to manage supply chains .

In the case of Bayer Italy , their Head of Supply Chain Management Michele Palumbo explains that COVID-19 led to a digital acceleration that normally would have taken them 10 years , but they instead achieved in little under 10 months .
“ It sounds crazy to say this is ‘ thanks ’ to COVID , but I believe there is always something positive to come out of even the most negative of things ,” he says .
Bayer Italy ’ s digital transformation actually began in 2010 as they strived to move from software to a collaborative ecosystem .
“ You can have the best algorithm that you could imagine , but no algorithm is able to predict what will happen in the future , so we were dealing with
DECEMBER 2020