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The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted people's lives and livelihoods in an unprecedented way. These threats have affected people's physical and mental well-being, or social and physical capital; other threats have created many problems in us with regard to the way we live and the reason for our existence today. The era after the recovery of the COVID-19 pandemic began to be called the 'new normal era'. This is an era full of challenges, uncertainty and instability. In this era of agility, curiosity, risk mitigation, learning by exploring, learning by doing, and focus, are highly expected. In this new normal, all concepts including supply chain and logistics concepts will undergo a re-transformation. These concepts will be more original as the world experiences more socio-economic problems indicating the need for change. The type and strength of changes in the new normal era will depend on the type and number of programs tested during the emergency status or community stability. In this new normal era, more innovative supply chain solutions are expected to deal with market fluctuations (Mohamed Buheji, 2020).
The term of new Normal is used to reflect fundamental changes in society or the business environment which refers to significant changes in supply chain practices, financial institutions and business conditions as a whole. The term new normal era has been used after the financial crisis in 2007 to 2008, then after the global recession from 2008 to 2012 and now the post-pandemic era of COVID-19. The term has been used in various other contexts to indicate that something that was previously abnormal has become normal again (Gomstyn, Alice, 2009). Similar to the era of the COVID-19 pandemic, the term new normal can also refer to human behaviour after this pandemic. Some experts anticipate that the coronavirus pandemic will change people's daily lives. This includes limiting contact with other people, such as not shaking hands and not hugging when they see each other. In addition, the need to maintain distance from other people or social distance. So, in general it is likely that the pandemic behaviour will persist even though the pandemic has recovered (Saggu, A. & Anukoonwattaka, W. 2015).
The business sector that has been most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is SMEs. SMEs make the most significant contribution to economic growth and sustainable development because SMEs create people's income, provide employment opportunities to develop wealth and motivate entrepreneurs to utilize their talents to create opportunities to become financially independent and take part in income redistribution. SMEs as vehicles of the globalization era and considered to be international linking value chains through different business activities m. Globalization brings small business opportunities to create market niches, the ability to expand business, integration in technology and promotes the ability to acquire advanced technology, lower cost rationing risks, and increase financial returns (Mohamed Abdirahman, 2019).
In the new normal era, SMEs need to innovate in the supply chain to improve the economy as well as improve business engines, the key is to reduce under-functioning companies and add well-functioning business units. The creation of companies in the new normal era brings enthusiasm to create new normal business activities, bring in new goods and services and increase employment opportunities by creating new normal job opportunities. SMEs are considered as a significant source of new production processes, increased economic productivity resulting in sustainable economic development and better living conditions for people in certain areas (Muhammad Usaini, 2014).
The management of supply chain has drawn significant attention in various sectors especially in SMEs sector because supply chain innovation in new normal have a significant impact on SMEs performance. Because SCM is a complex system that interacts with many different dimensions in business organization and also in SMEs and with main suppliers, target customers, and internal firm’s collaboration, SMEs need to innovate in business processes and consider supplier processes and customer needs and achieve effective SCM practices. Supply chain (SC) innovation practices in the new normal era help SMEs achieve efficiency and improve quality management for customer value creation, which is expected to result in increased SME performance in new normal conditions (DonHee Lee, 2011).