The Values Chain

Before the pandemic, what seems like a long time ago, we spent a long time obsessing about value chains.

We looked at how to make them efficient and wring every last drop of margin from them. We even did risk assessments to determine their vulnerability because we knew what happened to them when we have earthquakes and tsunamis and the like. I guess that not many factored in a global pandemic. Something like that fell into the inconvenient "unknown knowns" category and got in the way of growth projections. Most probably didn't factor in the potential collateral damage of supply chain nationalism or the effect of systemic change on their business model and debt servicing.

It's easy to see this after the event, and as we go cautiously to whatever work is going to look like, I wonder how many, under pressure to "recover", are taking the time to reflect.

Something as simple as adding an "s" to value and consider the "values chain". Just as a convoy moves at the pace of the slowest vehicle, s…