In 2020, the retail sector experienced drastic global inventory distortion due to the pandemic. The estimated value for out-of-stock items was $1.14 trillion. The value of inventory distortion costs in the global retail industry in 2020 was $580 million at the store level, $512 million for supply chain, and $677 million for the manufacturer, according to the IHL Group.
This is truly a classic dependency problem. If you’re building a product with 1,000 parts and all are available except one, that product doesn’t get sold. The 999 successful supply chain events are overshadowed by the one failure that did not allow a company to gain revenue for that product.