Early 2020 handed the global supply chain one of its hardest disruptions in years. Factories fell silent, shipments stalled, and importers were left waiting. By the time I started writing this, most factories had somehow restored their operations and long-delayed shipments were finally moving again — not always up to expectation, but the supply chain was working once more. As an SME business coach (asked for an opinion on this very topic by Bloomberg), I watched factory owners pull off a remarkable recovery to keep one promise: deliver to their customers. To show both sides, I also interviewed a supply-chain manager in the local buying office of a multinational, on how she handled her own stretched suppliers.
Elaine: Restarting a Factory with Three Kids at Home
Elaine Zhao is the factory owner at the centre of this story. “It was the toughest stretch of my life,” the mother of three young kids said. “On one hand I’m fighting to restart production and reassure my customers; on the other I’ve got three kids on a remote-schooling schedule. I’m going crazy!” Every morning she scanned at least three sources for the latest policy updates: Weibo (the local microblog) for quick rumour and info, the provincial government for policy usually ahead of the city, and the city’s own announcements for the rules actually being enforced. To get her workers safely back on the line, she carefully sourced the supplies her plant needed at a reasonable price — and when she couldn’t, she simply chose not to run that day until new stock arrived.
The Scramble for Workers — and a Clever Workaround
Workers were in heavy demand. Barely a third could return to the plant under the travel restrictions, so factories competed for them, skilled or unskilled. “That part was expensive but relatively easy. I kept some extra ‘red-packet’ bonus for our own loyal workers and made sure no outside offer could beat ours,” said Elaine. “Still, many were absent, and we were hungry for more hands.” She was innovative enough to invent a temporary form of supply-chain integration. “One of our supplier’s bosses was stranded in another province over the New Year holiday, and so was the management of his workshop, since they run it as a family business. His workers were there on the line, but with no supervisor to tell them what to do next. We hired his workers to do our work until his family could safely return — a win-win, since we paid him for it.”
Going Cloud: Managing a Crew Through DingTalk
Through this period, Elaine had to adopt a new tool to manage her crew. Alibaba’s DingTalk — a not-so-new product focused on intra-company communication — did an exceptional job adapting itself to support SME staff management at exactly the right moment. “Working fully online from home was new to us. We had to change how we collaborate, and that was one more challenge on the pile.” The app helped her visualise most of her data for a ‘cloud office’. Inspired by a well-regarded business coach from Hong Kong, and despite everything, Elaine still had her sales team chasing new customers — which always takes time to convert into real paying accounts. “We just treat sales as a normal, ongoing process.”
The Buyer’s Side: A Sourcing Manager’s Juggling Act
The buyer’s side was no easier. Karen, sourcing manager at a well-known US-headquartered multinational, faced the same problem from the opposite angle. “The first week was easy — we still had raw-material inventory to work through, so the early impact wasn’t bad.” Her company manufactures in Fujian province and, for strategic reasons, also runs production in another Asian country, the Philippines — a textbook China+1 move. “Our long-planned risk-management setup bought us time. We hold inventory at the raw-material level, and that paid off — no complaints from our production line.” As things dragged on, her job got harder: she had to prioritise demand from manufacturing sites around the world and ration limited deliveries — just enough to keep each line moving. Every day she traded best practice between suppliers: through her, a supplier in Jiangsu could learn from a faster-recovering supplier in Zhejiang on how to hire and protect workers, or how to show officials they were ready for restart approval. She also reported weekly to headquarters on status and roadblocks. “With all that effort, we restored most of our capacity. Suppliers with higher automation, or outside the most disrupted regions, even hit 100% by the end of February.”
What the Recovery Teaches Buyers
By the time I was finishing this article, many regions were already reporting a return to normal operations for days in a row, and cautious optimism was setting in. Yet the disruption was clearly spreading to the root of businesses elsewhere. With shops closing and flights grounded in other markets, a global slowdown looked easy to predict — and the trading business, unfortunately, faces another wave of challenge. The lesson for buyers is simple: the suppliers and supply chains that recover fastest are the ones built for resilience long before disruption hits — buffered inventory, a second production base, and partners you can actually reach.
WRITTEN BY
CEO & Founder · MFE Sourcing & Ben B2B Talk
A Hong Kong-based sourcing veteran with 20+ years auditing factories across China and Asia, author of Ben’s Sourcing Guidebook and a long-time Alibaba.com columnist. Through MFE Sourcing he gives importers factory-direct supply from a vetted, on-site-checked network — your team on the ground in China.