Navigating the New Normal: The Critical Importance of Resilient Supply Chains

Antony Higginbotham
Jan 14
4 min read

Updated: Feb 14

In recent years, the resilience of supply chains has catapulted from a backroom concern to a front-page issue. At Polaris Partners, we were all involved in politics during the Covid-19 pandemic. During that time we spoke to numerous businesses experiencing major disruption which caused headaches for years after, but we also saw and were involved in the public policy ramifications including looking at how we secure vital components moving forwards.

But it isn't just disruptions caused by events like the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses also need to contend with ongoing geopolitical tensions and ethical scrutiny over practices like those associated with Shein, all of which have underscored the necessity for robust supply chain strategies.

In this blog we explore the reasons it's essential to have a supply chain strategy, what needs to feed into that, and what risks exist on the horizon.

Is a Supply Chain Strategy a nice-to-have, or a must?

Put simply, it's mission critical to a businesses success.

Surges in demand, drops in production, shipping costs increasing exponentially. Each would be a major challenge on its own but the combination of all three at one time, as we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic, was unprecedented. These led to shortages across almost every sector and exposed the fragility of the just-in-time delivery model that many had adopted.

Businesses (and consumers) learned the hard way that over-reliance on single sources or regions, particularly China, could and would lead to significant operational vulnerabilities. Conversely, those businesses that had invested in robust supply chain strategies saw major upsides.

But Covid-19 has not been the only disruption. The UK's exit from the EU, and the political chaos that ensued between 2016 and 2019, brought uncertainty to business relationships and logistics have had to adapt to the new trading relationship since. More recently, the reelection of President Trump in the USA is forcing businesses to look ahead to potential tariffs. And the war in Ukraine has shown how events far away without direct relevance can have an impact closer to home.

So you know you need to look at your supply chains, but where do you start?

Map your supply chain - the more you understand your vulnerabilities, threats, and opportunities, the better prepared you can be. In doing this you should consider geography, geopolitical risks, how many suppliers are in the chain to get you the product you need, ease of communication, timelines, border and customs arrangements, price sensitivity, and whether your supplier is one of many or providing a niche service. Try to use a tool like the Kraljic matrix during your classification, and if you can work back through your suppliers until you get to the raw materials.
For each supplier, classify your risks according to liklihood and consequence of failure.
Mitigate your risks where it is possible to do so.
1. Build in diversity - you won't be able to mitigate every risk, but across your components or services try to mitigate against the ones that you can. If you can't mitigate easily, because the supplier is the sole producer, consider what else you could do with things like contract negotiation.
2. Look at what you could onshore to a domestic supplier in the event you needed to do so.
3. Consider whether you could better utilise your warehousing space to allow you to stockpile the inventory you rely on the most, and / or which you've identified as being at risk in your matrix of consequence vs liklihood.
4. Look at ways you might be able to manage demand in the event you experience disruption.
The key to a good Supply Chain Strategy is to keep it under review, and ensure that someone in your organisation has responsibility for doing so. What you don't want is for you to identify risk mitigation strategies and then find out when you need them that they're no longer available, because a domestic supplier has ceased trading for example.

What's on the horizon that should be kept in mind?

There are a number of risks on the horizon that your Supply Chain Strategy should look to consider when you're doing your mapping.

Tariffs - the incoming Trump administration has been clear that it plans to use tariffs as a tool of foreign and economic policy. Given the scale and globalised nature of the US economy it is likely this will see other countries follow suit. Make sure when considering geographic and geopolitical risk you are factoring in whether your suppliers are in trading blocs. You may have suppliers in two or three different countries, but if they are all in one bloc then look at whether tariffs could apply to all of them and mitigate accordingly.
Ethical risk - there is a growing interest in looking at how ethical supply chains are, for good reason. As more information comes to light it is essential from a business, societal and reputational perspective to ensure your supply chains adhere to the standards you would expect and be happy to defend.
UK-EU relations - with the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) up for a formal review in 2026 expect to see much discussion about UK-EU trade and how to ease non-tariff barriers. The UK will be looking to balance this against a more assertive US policy with regards to the EU, and domestic political considerations, but engaging early with Parliamentarians and feeding in to Government consultations as they come out could bear fruit.
UK-US-Australia MoU on Supply Chains - in 2024 the three countries signed an MoU on the establishment of a joint Supply Chain Resilience Cooperation Group, which will cooperate on data sharing and joint action to build resilience in priority supply chains. Whilst this is just forming up, expect to see updates during 2025.

At Polaris Partners we stand ready to assist you in creating, updating and maintaining a robust Supply Chain Strategy by making sure you understand the geopolitical implications of your suppliers. For a no obligation discussion please get in touch.

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