The examples have appeared throughout the supply chain during the crisis. At the beginning of the chain, farmers were forced to dump milk and eggs, euthanize animals and let crops rot in the field. At the same time, oil traders were forced to pay people to take product off their hands. At the other end, grocery stores experienced persistent runs and undersupply of many products, as did supplies of PPE, testing reagents, internet services and other products and services. Retail stores with more narrow and specialized product offerings were forced to close while retailers such as Target and Walmart continued to operate by selling groceries and pharmaceuticals along with clothing and electronics. In between disruptions occurred all along the supply chain, either causing interruptions to production and processing or buildups of unsold inventory and price cuts. Diversification of the supply chain is more complicated than simply calling more vendors or marketing to more consumers. Vendor relationships must be vetted and established with appropriate quality control, competitive pricing and reliable delivery. Customer relationships must also be established, also with competitive pricing, demonstration of product quality and availability and generation of sufficient orders to support production runs. At the same time, inventory space and par stocking patterns must be altered to allow for greater short-term variation in supply and sales levels in exchange for protection against catastrophic all-to-nothing shifts in times of crisis. This affects space needs, staffing levels, production lines and distribution channels. A key question is the degree to which individual operators should rely on their own space and logistics or outsource those functions to specialty service providers to some degree. With smaller amounts from multiple sources and greater lead time from order to delivery to use/sale, the dynamics of those choices change. While these issues will provide challenges for tribal businesses of all types and at all levels of the supply chain, we believe the trend toward diversification will provide significant opportunities as well, particularly for the types of consortiums described previously. The trend toward diversification will not simply be one of market forces and operators’ responses to crisis lessons. Government at all levels, particularly at the federal level, will be under pressure to encourage and perhaps even mandate in some cases, development of more robust and diverse supply chains. Tribes have the opportunity to present themselves as a unique solution to such issues, with a combination of land, labor (albeit requiring training in many cases), favorable tax and regulatory structures and potentially even free capital in some cases. Development of new production and processing facilities and transportation and warehousing hubs on tribal lands in strategic locations will offer added benefits beyond the immediate supply chain issue, including employment and economic activity in distressed areas and enhancement of tribal and rural economies.
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