Money – Finance & Strategy · Editorial

By Moakanyi Magazine · Global Issue · June 2026

Faced with shipments that arrived late or not at all, firms worldwide responded by holding more stock. Global supply disruptions encouraged inventory stockpiling, even as world trade rose in April in a fresh sign of resilience. For Botswana importers, who sit at the far end of long supply lines, that instinct is understandable – but a warehouse full of goods is cash that is not working.

The buffer dilemma

Stockpiling buys security against the next disruption, but it converts liquid cash into shelved inventory. For a Gaborone or Francistown importer, that trade-off is sharp: too little stock risks empty shelves when a supply line breaks; too much locks up the working capital needed to pay wages and suppliers. The right buffer is a judgement, not a default, and it shifts with the reliability of the routes a firm depends on.

Resilient trade flows ease the pressure to over-stock, but the lesson of the disruption years lingers in how firms plan. The businesses that manage best hold enough to absorb a shock without drowning their cash flow to do it, and they revisit that balance as conditions change rather than carrying a crisis-era buffer into calmer times. A buffer sized for the worst month of the worst year is an expensive way to run an ordinary one.

Inventory is insurance you pay for whether or not you ever claim.

For Botswana the takeaway is calibration. As global trade steadies, importers can right-size their buffers – holding cover against genuine risk while freeing the working capital that keeps a business liquid through a slow season. The goal is not the largest store of stock but the smallest one that still lets the firm sleep at night.

Sources: WSJ