Managing global supply chains with Dr Robert Handfield from the United States of America

27.04.2020 Lisa McAuley
Managing global supply chains with Dr Robert Handfield from the United States of America

Rob Handfield is the Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University, and Director of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative. He also serves as Faculty Lead for the Manufacturing Analytics group within the International Institute of Analytics, and is on the Faculty for Operations Research Curriculum at NC State University.

The SCRC is the first major industry-university partnership to integrate student projects into the MBA classroom in an integrative fashion, and has had 15 major Fortune 500 companies participating as industry partners since 1999. Prior to this role, Handfield was an Associate Professor and Research Associate with the Global Procurement and Supply Chain Benchmarking Initiative at Michigan State University from 1992-1999, working closely with Professor Robert Monczka.

Topics covered:

  • What is the likelihood that the tariffs and trade wars will continue after Covid ends?
  • What is the potential for further escalations between China and the USA and what is the impact for supply chains?
  • What are the key elements of political leadership that are required in this situation?
  • What will happen to the state of global contracts, particularly around force majeure clauses, post-Covid?
  • We might be witnessing a change in global supply chains moving forward beyond post-Covid, what could this look like and what are the impacts?
  • Is supplier diversity going to be something that MNCs will need to reconsider and what can be done to support SMEs to access wider opportunities?
  • What is adaptive leadership and why will this be an important skillset for business now and post-Covid?