TOPICAL FOCUS
NAVIGATING THE SUPPLY CHAIN ‘PINGDEMIC’
Fraser Ironside, Director Business Consulting at Kinaxis, reflects on the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the disruption caused by the ping of the NHS Covid app Writer: Fraser Ironside, Director Business Consulting at Kinaxis
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t its height, the “pingdemic” caused significant disruption to UK supply chains as hundreds of thousands of employees self-isolated after being pinged by the NHS Covid app. Although its effects have been reduced by changes to policy and public health guidelines, it severely disrupted retail, food preparation and distribution and continues to be a problem in hospitality. 14 | EME Outlook issue 43
The disruption it generated was held partially responsible for an unexpected downturn in retail activity during July and led to some criticism of the government by business leaders concerned about the ability of key sectors such as logistics to continue operating effectively, leading to empty shelves. Although the pingdemic arose from the unique circumstances of the coronavirus, it was only the
latest in a continuum of disruptions to afflict UK supply chains. At times, these disruptions pile up close to one another to cause severe business aggravation. The pingdemic, for example, exacerbated HGV driver shortages that have existed in the UK since Brexit and the early days of the pandemic when many EU citizens with portable skills left the UK. Globally, we can see this in the way the pandemic has led to microchip
