Disasters are on the rise, more complex, and donor support is increasingly unpredictable. In response to this trend humanitarian agencies are looking for more efficient and effective solutions. This paper discusses the evolution of supply chain management in disaster relief and the role of new players like the private sector. It is based on research conducted by the Humanitarian Research Group at INSEAD.

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The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has developed a humanitarian supply management system (SUMA) that records, tracks and reports the flow of donations and purchased goods into a disaster area. While a lot of the received goods are in-kind donations, there is a procurement process triggered by the cash funds to meet specific needs. This procurement process also needs to comply with the humanitarian principles, and is therefore susceptible to manipulations from different stakeholders.SUMA has contributed to all the different deployments with the ability to build transparency and accountability in complex operations. These two contributions help to isolate the political factors from the supply chain and protect the humanitarian principles and space.

PurposeHumanitarian disasters strike overnight causing urgent demands for assistance in complex environments. Attending to the needs of the beneficiaries requires highly trained and knowledgeable staff. However, humanitarian agencies can neither afford, nor keep on standby full‐time staff with a wide range of knowledge and expertise to meet all possible needs. Some agencies have gained access to additional trained staff through partnership agreements with the private sector. These secondments augment the capacity of humanitarian agencies placing corporate managers in a different setting where they can test their knowledge and skills. The purpose of this paper is to provide arguments to build a business case for corporate managers to be seconded to humanitarian relief operations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses case study research and academic literature.FindingsThe paper provides a list of the managerial roles of humanitarian logisticians to identify the learning opportunities available to seconded staff operating in disaster relief operations. The list of roles may be considered learning opportunities for corporate managers in a different context and setting.Social implicationsThe paper shows that there is a possibility to augment the response capacity of humanitarian agencies with corporate managers during a disaster.Originality/valueThe paper focuses on the value of learning during emergency operations for corporate managers.