About

Dr. Vidya Mani is an Associate Professor of Business Administration at the UVA Darden School of Business, with deep expertise in global supply chains. Her research focuses on how supply chain imperatives influence operational decisions across key sectors such as automotive, electronics, energy, technology, pharmaceuticals, and retail. She examines the impact of trade policies on national competitiveness and resilience of critical supply chains, develops energy-transition pathways for economies, evaluates environmental safety and compliance in the energy sector, and explores secure supply chain strategies in electronics. Additionally, her work includes developing product portfolios and distribution strategies for specialty drugs and making targeted assortment and labor decisions for retail stores. Dr. Mani teaches an elective on Sustainable Global Value Chains in the Residential and Executive MBA programs at Darden. She is the faculty lead for the P3 Impact Award Program run by Concordia, the UVA Darden School Institute for Business in Society, and the U.S. Department of State's Office of Global Partnerships. Her collaborations with industry and policymakers assess legislative impacts and ESG standards on supply chains, evaluating trade-offs related to local policies, national security, and global objectives. She has developed a data-driven intelligent response toolkit to mitigate counterfeit risks in the weapons system supply chain in partnership with the US Department of Defense and the LMI Research Institute. Dr. Mani is a Franklin Fellow at the Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and serves on working groups developing sustainability standards for the textile and apparel sector and critical minerals supply chains.

Research topics

• Business
• Computer Science
• Economics
• Medicine
• Geography
• Engineering
• Industrial organization
• Marketing
• Archaeology
• Agricultural economics
• Natural resource economics
• Chemistry
• Mathematics
• Family medicine
• Econometrics
• Pulp and paper industry
• Statistics
• Microeconomics

Selected publications

• AI data center boom is leaving consumer electronics short of chips − even though they don’t use the same kinds

  2026-05-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Transformative Marketing Practices in the Agro Industry: Exploring Trends, Challenges, and Strategic Outcomes

  INTERANTIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT · 2025-08-06

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The agro-industry is undergoing a transformative shift in marketing strategies, driven by digitalization, evolving consumer preferences, and competitive pressures. This study examines the transition from traditional to innovative marketing practices, focusing on digital adoption, branding, supply chain efficiency, and strategic outcomes. Findings reveal that agro-enterprises leveraging digital platforms, product differentiation, and customer-centric approaches achieve enhanced market reach, brand equity, and profitability. However, challenges such as rural digital divides, infrastructural gaps, and policy inconsistencies hinder widespread adoption, particularly among smallholder farmers. The study emphasizes the need for inclusive policies, financial support, and stakeholder collaboration to bridge these gaps. Managerial implications highlight the importance of data-driven marketing and cross-functional alignment, while societal benefits include rural empowerment and sustainable food systems. Future research should explore AI-driven marketing and cross-country comparative analyses to refine strategic frameworks. Keywords: Agro-industry, Transformative Marketing, Digital Adoption, Branding, Rural Empowerment, Supply Chain Innovation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• “Not a box of nuts and bolts”: Distribution channels for specialty drugs

  Production and Operations Management · 2023 · 4 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Business
  • Industrial organization

  One of the most important trends in the pharmaceutical industry is the rapid growth of specialty drugs. Specialty drugs, mostly bio based, tend to be high risk, high priced, and more regulated than traditional drugs, resulting in unprecedented challenges in distribution. Such challenges lead to the emergence of specialty distributors (SDs), which, compared with traditional wholesalers (WSs), represent a more controlled channel and carry a smaller variety of drugs. Due to the risky nature of specialty drugs, manufacturers must consider the trade‐off between access and control in determining whether to use SDs (partially or exclusively). Using a unique dataset assembled from multiple proprietary and public data sources on the transactions for 419 specialty drugs across 11 manufacturers (including 8 of the top 15 manufacturers), 161 distributors, and 129,911 points of care (POCs) in 2012–2015, we investigate how the competing factors of access and control influence manufacturers’ usage of SDs (vs. WSs), with access indicated by downstream POCs’ required product variety and control indicated by regulations on the network. We find that interestingly, the imposition of the regulations in general on the product is not associated with higher usage of SDs, but the imposition of the regulations with a specific element (restrictive access) is. In addition, downstream POCs’ need for convenient access to the required drug variety is associated with lower SD usage. Our study contributes to the limited supply chain literature on risky products and the limited empirical research on Business‐to‐Business (B2B) distribution decisions, and provides important insights and guidance to manufacturers, downstream POCs, and regulators.

  PublisherDOI

• H&M, China, and Cotton: Sourcing a Solution?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Pulp and paper industry
  • Business
  • Chemistry
  PublisherDOI

• Fairphone (A): Can a Start-Up Change an Industry?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Regulations and Standards: Electronics Supply Chain

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Electronics Supply Chain Overview

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• IFixit: If You Bought it, You Don't Really Own it

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Social Investment in Supply Chains: Mining the Possibilities

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Counterfeits and E-Commerce: Why Even Build it?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Douglas J. Thomas

  University of Virginia

  6 shared

• Saravanan Kesavan

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  5 shared

• Catarina Delgado

  Universidade do Porto

  4 shared

• Jayashankar M. Swaminathan

  3 shared

• Alexandra Medack

  3 shared

• Christopher A. Erickson

  New Mexico State University

  2 shared

• Jenny Mead

  2 shared

• Delia J. Valles-Rosales

  2 shared