At Cisco Systems, managing risk "is all about time to recovery," says Wes Olson, managing director-manufacturing vertical industry.

To ensure that the company is prepared to act quickly when the unexpected happens, Cisco uses Oracle technology to perform numerous "what if" scenarios. By seeing the potential impact that different occurrences would have on Cisco's supply chain and on individual customers, the company can create a response plan for each of these possibilities.

"If there is an earthquake in a certain area, we might want to look at a 100 mile radius around that to see what sources of supply we have in that area and whether any of these or single source suppliers or suppliers of critical components to a large customer base," Olson says. If there are major issues, "we would look at the impact on customers and on the supply chain and determine what actions we should take."

By building a portfolio of potential response activities and technology to support those activities, "we can respond more quickly than we ever have before," Olson says. "The key is to quickly get your supply chain back up and running so you can be responsive to customer demands," he says.

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