Abstract

Supply chain resilience and the ripple effect have been widely studied, mostly focusing on material flow-related practices. The financial flow adjustments to cope with supply chain disruptions have received much less attention. We contribute to the literature by examining the impact of adapting payment terms during and after disruptions. In particular, we perform a discrete event simulation analysis in anyLogistix for a complex supply chain network to investigate the impact of adjusting payment terms on supply chain cash flows. Our results suggest that collaboratively adjusting payment terms is an effective strategy for coping with disruptions. In contrast, ad hoc adjustments and immediate returns to pre-disruption payment schemes do not yield visible improvements. Positive effects on cash and loans are observed if an adjustment of payment terms occurs proactively and in a coordinated manner, especially when expediting payments downstream and payment slowing down upstream. The results from our sensitivity analysis on the impact of accelerating/decelerating cash conversion cycles favour shorter cycles when coping with disruptions. We deduce useful managerial insights and reveal some new theoretical tensions related to the impact of payment adjustments on cash flows in supply chains.

Introduction

Supply chain resilience and the ripple effect have been significantly visible research avenues ( Chervenkova and Ivanov, 2023 , Dolgui et al., 2023 , Sawik, 2023 , Ivanov, 2024a , Ivanov, 2024b ). The extant literature offers numerous strategies and practices for the preparedness and recovery of supply chains ( Hosseini et al., 2019 , Ivanov and Dolgui, 2021 , Ivanov et al., 2021 , Gruchmann et al., 2024 ). Most of these strategies and practices are related to material flows – e.g. backup suppliers, risk mitigation inventory, and capacity flexibility ( Lin et al., 2021 , Mitręga and Choi, 2021 , Brusset et al., 2023 , Hägele et al., 2023 , Aldrighetti et al., 2024 ). Some research examined the role of information flows in supply chain resilience, focusing on visibility, digital technology, and cybersecurity ( Ivanov, 2021 , Sawik, 2022 , Dubey et al., 2023 ). However, practices of financial flow adjustments to cope with supply chain disruptions have received much less attention ( Choi et al., 2023 ).

The role of financial flows in supply chain resilience is a distinct but underexplored topic of high practical relevance. Consider an example. In the fall of 2023, Ford’s supply chain experienced a series of disruptions caused by strikes ( Shepardson and White, 2023 ). Assembly plants stopped, leading to significant monetary losses at Ford ($1.7 billion in lost profits and about 100,000 units fewer wholesale vehicle sales from the strike) ( Gomes, 2023 ). Adversely, the ripple effect from the disruptions at the assembly plants could have resulted in setting Tier 2 suppliers at financial risk and danger of bankruptcy because of missing liquidity, higher interest rates, and difficulties to get loans from the banks ( Vicci, 2023 ).

Conclusion

In this study, we departed from the existing research gap about the role of cash flows in supply chain resilience and ripple effect analysis. The extant literature mostly focuses on strategies for preparedness and recovery related to material flows. Practices of financial flow adjustments to cope with supply chain disruptions have received much less attention. However, the practical and academic importance of this topic are unquestionable.

The main contribution of our study to the literature is an examination of the impacts of payment term adaptation during and after disruption responses, along with proposing useful coping strategies based on adjusting deferment periods and the role of coordination in this adaptation. The objective of our analysis was to investigate the impact of adjusting payment terms on supply chain cash flows.

Methodologically, we utilised a discrete event simulation analysis in anyLogistix applied to a complex supply chain network. We performed simulations with nominal (disruption-free) and disruption scenarios considering different response strategies. The computational results of this study have been translated into useful managerial insights on the importance of payment term adjustment during disruptions to avoid bankruptcies in the supply chain and improve its resilience.