Over two-thirds of supply chain and resilience leaders (68%) said that they expect more disruptions to take place over the next 24 months when compared to the last two years, based on a recent survey.

According to a report published January 9 by the enterprise resilience software company Infinite Blue, entitled “2024 Global Enterprise Resilience Report: When Forces Collide,” 44% of respondents said that economic downturn and market disruptions were the greatest threat to their supply chains. Another 23.4% of responders said that natural disasters were their biggest concern.

The survey also showed that over half of all organizations (53%) are investing in the necessary resources to develop and maintain programs that prepare a company for significant disruptions. Frank Shultz, the CEO and founder of Infinite Blue, argues that this number needs to be higher.

“The big thing is getting executive buy-in if it’s not there already,” Shultz said. “Boards are more involved in resilience programs currently than they have ever been in the last two decades. I always tell resilience professionals to align the company’s goals with what they’re trying to protect in resilience. It’s not just about responding to disasters but about protecting upside.”

Shultz added that resilience is less about how many plans a company approves and more about what the organization is doing on a daily basis to ensure the company is more resilient.

Shultz said that his biggest takeaway from the report is that there is still a lot of concern about how geopolitical conflicts will impact resiliency.

“I think people are very nervous about geopolitical tensions in 2024, both domestically and internationally from some of the supply chain effects that we are seeing as a result of the wars that are going on,” Shultz said. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better from a pressure perspective, but that doesn’t stop companies from being able to plan for and respond to those pressures. Those that don’t think about it ahead of time may find that they’re caught off guard and surprised as we get towards the second half of the year.”

Infinite Blue interviewed 130 supply chain and resilience professionals in November 2023 for the report.