The pandemic has increased uncertainty in the warehousing, labor and transportation markets, says Stephen Beard, vice president of solutions at Flexe.

A “complete game changer” is how Beard describes the pandemic’s impact on the supply chain. A container moving from China to L.A. or Long Beach that once cost $3,000 might fetch 10 times that price today. “This is not a minor shift. This is really tectonic.”

While supply chains have always needed to be resilient and flexible, the situation is extreme today, he says. Supply chains have long optimized around lowest unit cost, but what matters now is how much flexibility is built into their design.

The flexible warehouse industry was built around providing space to companies whose planning was sub-optimal; they might need to store 5,000 pallets for a few months, or require extra space on a seasonal basis. Because of the pandemic, Beard says, customers often are uncertain about the timing of deliveries. What’s more, “they have perishable demand for that inventory.”

Beard doesn’t see relief from current supply chain problems happening anytime soon. “Whether we're talking about space, trailers, labor, raw materials or manufacturing capacity, there’s no end in sight at least through 2022, and probably beyond. We're going to be in a position where the new normal is normal. There’s a lot of optimization still to happen.”

Because companies can’t outsource their pain, as Beard puts it, it’s vitally important to pick smart partners. “You need people who are willing to come to the table and meet you halfway,” he says. “But if you're looking to take whatever challenges you're having in this environment and just hand that to a vendor and say, make it go away, you're probably not going to be very successful. It's going to require some collaboration.”