African businesses must move beyond reacting to supply-chain disruptions and begin designing organisations capable of anticipating shocks, absorbing their impacts and operating competitively, the Director-General, African Centre for Supply Chain (ACSC), Dr Obiora Madu, said.

Madu gave the warning at the public presentation of his new book, ‘RAPID: Building Organisations That Endure, Adapt and Win’, where he argued that disruptions could no longer be treated as isolated emergencies requiring temporary fixes.

According to him, geopolitical tensions, climate-related shocks, pandemics, trade restrictions and other emerging pressures have made disruption a recurring feature of the global business environment, exposing the weaknesses of organisations that rely primarily on crisis response.

He said the continent needed a fundamental shift from repairing broken supply chains after disruptions had occurred to building systems that could withstand and adapt to them.

“Organisations need to build resilience into their structures rather than rely on crisis responses when disruptions occur,” Madu said.

He explained that businesses should map their supply chains beyond direct suppliers, identify areas of concentrated risk, pre-qualify alternative suppliers and establish response protocols before disruptions happen.

Madu said the new book was the product of 36 years of consulting, training and operational experience across 12 African countries, during which he repeatedly encountered organisations with competent personnel that were nevertheless caught unprepared by disruptions.

He said his experience had shown him that having experienced employees alone was not sufficient to guarantee organisational resilience if the systems within which they operated remained vulnerable.

The RAPID framework, which forms the central proposition of the book, brings together five capabilities — resilience architecture, agile response protocols, performance intelligence, integration and dynamic continuity — which Madu said could help organisations move from reactive management to preparedness and sustained performance.

He argued that resilience should no longer be regarded as the exclusive responsibility of supply-chain professionals, but as a strategic organisational capability involving leadership, operations, technology, people and decision-making.

The supply-chain expert also linked organisational resilience to the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), arguing that the continent’s ambition to increase intra-African trade would require stronger and more reliable supply-chain systems.

Madu called for the adoption of the RAPID framework within AfCFTA’s broader architecture, particularly along strategic trade corridors, saying infrastructure alone would not be sufficient to guarantee the smooth movement of goods across African borders.

He identified the development of trade corridors, including the Lagos-Abidjan corridor and corridors linking East African markets, as areas where stronger supply-chain coordination could support the objectives of continental trade integration.

He said organisations and countries that develop resilience, agility and continuity into their operations would be better positioned to take advantage of Africa’s expanding trade opportunities.

A reviewer of the book, Prof. Charles Asenime, described supply-chain disruption as a strategic threat to regional competitiveness, while Prof. Premkumar Rajagopal of Malaysia University of Science and Technology stressed that resilience and agility had become central to organisational survival.

Managing Partner, Truss Ugavi Azuka Chukwuelue, demonstrated his commitment to supporting capacity building and the development of future supply chain professionals even as he pledged to support selected postgraduate logistics students with the books.

The book launch attracted academics, logistics and supply-chain professionals, policymakers and corporate executives, with contributors emphasising the growing importance of resilience and agility to business survival, as well as placing organisational resilience at the centre of the conversation on how African businesses can remain competitive in an increasingly volatile global economy.