If we define behavior as “the response to an input”, we have found that, contrary to what most people think, most managers do not adapt their behavior to the circumstances.  When someone’s behavior is split in small enough domains, it appears that in each domain the behavior is stable, also in a heavy crisis. The managers have targets, rules and regulations and continue to work according them. Moreover they have habits and routine.  Some behavioral elements do follow the crisis pulse, but the response of each element is the same as outside the crisis.

So if normal purchaser’s behavior is to order the average of last month’s sales, this will be continued also if sales drops in a crisis.  When the crisis hit the coating industry, and Flostock predicted an upward peak, all experts said that this would not take place because supply chain professionals would be “much wiser” and adapt their behavior. Nothing of the kind: the wave took place completely as predicted and everybody bought product in the same way as before, resulting in big overstocking. This continuity in behavior makes modeling and forecasting possible. 

In a recent report by Accenture the importance of Supply Chain Risk Management is once again underlined. They found that a majority of leaders wants to make it into one of their priorities and is prepared to invest significantly in it. Most important is end-to-end  supply chain visibility and analytics. Whom better to invite than Flostock, described by McKinsey in SCMR as best practice in the crisis? We build supply chain models that can be used by our customers for visualizing all the potential threats and opportunities in their chain. Our original insights are now included in the teaching at Wharton, MIT and at least 6 European Universities.