Logistics and Supply Chain Resilience of Japanese Companies: Perspectives from Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: Enhancing the resilience of global supply chains has become of increasing priority in response to recent natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This paper presents findings from semi-structured interviews with five Japanese companies conducted between November 2020 and February 2021 to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on different aspects of logistics and supply chain activities and resilience strategies implemented. The interviews focused on firms’ financial performance and the status of preparedness, response, and future plans from the perspective of logistics and supply chain resilience. Through interviews, we also investigated whether existing logistics and supply chain resilience strategies helped the companies avoid, withstand, respond to, or recover from the pandemic’s impacts. Results: The results indicated that the interviewed companies experienced both positive and negative impacts from the pandemic on their logistics and supply chain activities and experienced negative impacts mainly on their financial performance. Conclusions: A certain level of preparedness was observed; however, the levels of resilience preparedness, response, and future plans varied among companies with different attributes, such as industry type and organisation size.