New research published Oct. 29 by the Business Continuity Institute and supported by Zurich Insurance reveals that manufacturers have reported a 58-percent increase in disruption to their supply chains over the last 12 months; this compares with 35 percent across all industry sectors. To research the "Supply Chain Resilience" report, 201 organizations across all sectors, industries and locations were surveyed.

The objective of the research was to understand levels of supply chain disruption being experienced, the impact of the disruption and what organizations were doing to tackle the problem and, in particular, the extent to which the Business Continuity Management methodology was being used to deal with the impact of such disruption.

"We're now seeing the downside of years of outsourcing, extended supply chains and focus on core competency; organizations are now much more vulnerable to supply chain disruption than in the past," said  Lyndon Bird, international and technical director of the Business Continuity Institute. "While companies have banked the cost savings, this research indicates they have still to make the corresponding investment in resilience." Bird says that business continuity management "provides a robust and proven approach to prepare an organization for and protect against disruption in its supply chain."

A summary of the report is available to download from here: http://www.thebci.org/supplychainsummary.pdf

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