Raw Material Market Disruptions During COVID-19: How Agility Can Create a Competitive Advantage?

This paper's objective is to present a comprehensive view on the evolution of main raw materials used by European manufacturers from technical and construction fields (ferrous metals, non-ferrous, polymers and timber) over the last 2 years described by high volatility. This topic is particularly relevant nowadays since raw materials shortages put the ongoing economic recovery under pressure. The value added of this analysis consists in a clear picture of the disruptions triggered by the ongoing sanitary crisis on construction raw materials market since spring 2020. For companies, raw materials control is a mandatory purpose to keep under control direct cost of production and stay competitive. Obviously, all manufactures were affected by this market volatility but some of them have been more resilient to shocks and managed to perform better than others. Therefore, they obtained a competitive advantage based on their agility on sourcing and controlling the supply of their main raw materials. Besides capturing the trends of main raw materials on the European market, this paper includes a practical guideline that might be considered by decision makers to tame the impact of raw materials volatility on their performance and help them to boost their resilience and agility to obtain a competitive advantage.