How Companies Are Overhauling Supply Chains to Ease Bottlenecks

The Covid pandemic has strained global supply chains, causing freight backlogs that have driven up costs. Now, some companies are looking for longer-term solutions to prepare for future supply-chain crises, even if those strategies come at a high cost.

Key Supply-Chain Link Faces Perfect Storm This Holiday Shopping Season

Warehouses in California’s Inland Empire are a crucial step in the U.S. supply chain. Low warehouse vacancy rates in the area combined with port delays are creating a perfect storm of challenges this holiday season. 

 

Could Autonomous Trucks Finally Solve the Truck Driver Shortage?

While a lot of the attention around autonomous driving is focused on robotaxis, driverless trucks may actually have an easier and quicker route to market, and could present a solution to a driver shortage in the U.S.. So could they be the answer the industry is looking for? To find out, WSJ's George Downs spoke to Aurora and Embark as the companies were making their stock market debut.

 

WTO director-general says supply chain problems could last months

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first African head of the World Trade Organization, tells the FT Africa Summit that she expects global supply chain difficulties to last several months. She tells FT editor Roula Khalaf that the rhetoric about a decoupling of the US and Chinese economies is not matched by reality on the ground, and she blames a lack of global leadership for Covid-19 vaccines not ending up where they are needed most. 

 

What America's Supply-Chain Backlog Looks Like Up Close - WSJ

California’s Port of Los Angeles is struggling to keep up with the crush of cargo containers arriving at its terminals, creating one of the biggest choke points in the global supply-chain crisis. This exclusive aerial video illustrates the scope of the problem and the complexities of this process.

 

China’s Power Crisis Threatens to Delay Apple Gadgets, Other Goods - WSJ

China’s electricity shortages have hit factories that produce a lot of the goods we use every day, including Apple gadgets and furniture. The country’s coal problems expose the growing pains in transitioning to a greener future and risks to the global supply chain.

 

Business: go woke or go broke? - The Economist

Today consumers want to buy more sustainable products, employees want to work for firms that share their values, and in the investment world, ESG funds are all the rage. How are companies responding to these shifting demands and can businesses really do well by doing good? 

 

The Inside Story of the Ship That Broke Global Trade

The six-day stranding of the "Ever Given" in the Suez Canal last March did something incredibly rare: it made regular people care about shipping, the means by which more than 80% of the world’s goods are transported. It took only one wrong turn for the container ship to bring a critical trading artery to a standstill. This is how a $1 billion worth of cargo got stuck, freed and impounded as the courts took over. 

 

Adding social issues to the corporate balance sheet - FT Moral Money

Employees, investors and customers are increasingly demanding transparency across supply chains and corporate structures. Executives are forced to consider their wider impact as significant of a risk as financial measurements