Case Study

Wistful Cosmetics: Designing supply chain resilience

2 pages
July 2022
Reference: IMD-7-2376

This disguised case exercise presents the situation confronting Wistful Cosmetics, a cosmetics company based in Spain. The company, like many others, has been shaken by disruptions to global supply chains. Among the most prominent events are Covid, the Suez Canal blockage by the Ever Given container ship, the global capacity crisis in logistics infrastructure, and unprecedent spikes in demand. The case describes Wistful’s context and structure and challenges the reader to respond to three questions: what does the term ‘supply chain resilience’ mean?, what sorts of events would fall under this definition?, and what steps should Wistful’s supply chain director recommend, with what anticipated impacts on the operations and business model.

Learning Objective
  • The case provides a platform for students to consider the challenges a company might face in designing and implementing supply chain resilience. 
  • The case will elicit challenges that are not unique to the case and that are universally present in companies today.
Keywords
Supply Chain Management, Resilience, Operations
Type
Published Sources
Copyright
© 2022
Available Languages
English
Related material
Teaching note
Case clearing houses
Contact

Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications

Discover our latest research
IMD's faculty and research teams publish articles, case studies, books and reports on a wide range of topics