EDITOR'S LETTER

摘要

Eighteen months have passed since the novel Coronavirus, generally known as Covid-19, first made its way out of China and into the mature markets of Europe and North America. It brought with it untold stresses, forced us to think differently about how we work, and caused an immense amount of misery and grief.Many of us took some time to wonder how different life might be once we came out the other side of the global pandemic and emerged into what became thought of as the 'new normal'. Indeed, that was a fundamental question posed at last year's EPCA Annual Meeting. And as we prepare for another virtual EPCA event next month - did we expect restrictions to last this long? - I am beginning to think we are already living in this new normal world.Even before the virus arrived, there had been talk for some time - again, not least at the EPCA Annual Meeting - of the increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity 〔often condensed to the rather ugly acronym VUCA〕 being displayed in global supply chains. Well, if we though we were suffering from a bad case of VUCA in 2019, we hadn't seen anything yet.