Last week I met with five clients. They ranged in size from 1,500-65,000 containers. Although they each had vastly different businesses, their challenges were remarkably similar. There is no silver bullet in the short term. Unfortunately, daily triage will remain the norm at least through the holidays, while importers simply try to “stay afloat” on orders already placed.

In order to escape this pattern, I recommend implementing the following five strategies immediately in order to better cope going forward. There doesn’t appear to be any end in sight according to most of the experts I talk to.

Deploy technology

Managing something as complex as importing with Excel and email was never a good idea, but right now, it’s a terrible idea. An order management platform is essential to solving this. I have one client who is getting up at 3 am every day in order to respond to WeChats before their suppliers go home.

Plan to add two months to your order lead times starting now

Orders placed on Sept. 1 would normally arrive on Jan. 1 (3 months production, 1 month shipping). I recommend expecting a March 1 arrival. Every component of the logistics chain is broken and unpredictable. Each delay compounds the next. Delays in getting a container creates delays in getting a booking. Add port delays on both ends, shutdowns, and congestion to the list of delays. One customer told me they have more than 1,500 containers “stranded” in Asia right now.