UTK Professor addresses supply chain concerns ahead of the holiday season
In addition to the regional worker shortage (read the main story from today’s newsletter here), supply chain woes have been dragging on for the past few months. Both the August and September edition of the Knoxville Chamber’s “Economic Conditions Outlook,” financed by First Horizon Bank, surveyed local businesses on how delays in supplies have impacted them. You can find those stories here and here.
Coming up on the holiday season, the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, recently published a Q&A with Chris Craighead, the John H. “Red” Dove Professor in Supply Chain Management. Craighead answered questions specific to holiday shipping, as well as general supply issues later in the article.
His advice was to start holiday shipping early this year and to send gifts directly to the recipient’s home if possible. As for the “new normal” of supply chains, Craighead thinks most things will return to pre-pandemic conditions. However, labor shortages, such as truck drivers, are something he thinks will need to be addressed in the long term. He also thinks there will be innovations in that industry that will bring new solutions to the table.
Read the full Q&A here.
