Senate investigators are widening the scope of the inquiry into General Motors' decade-long failure to recall cars with a defective ignition switch to also focus on the supplier that made the flawed part.

The rise of global sourcing as a means to minimize costs has had the unintended consequence of increasing risk. Dependence on an increasing number of suppliers makes it difficult to monitor their performance without automated metrics. According to a 2013 Supply Chain Resilience Survey, 75 percent of organizations experienced at least one supply chain disruption incident in the past year.

Mitigating the risk of sanctions under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is a core concern in every international commercial transaction, including cross-border distribution and franchising relationships.

Employees at the Chinese factories of Apple supplier Foxconn continue to work beyond the country's legal limit of 49 hours a week, according to a report from the Fair Labor Association (FLA). But the Taiwanese manufacturer is making overall steady progress in improving the working conditions at a select group of factories in China, it said.

Hennes & Mauritz, selling under the brand H&M, is the world's second-largest apparel company and the biggest buyer of clothes made in Bangladesh. That has put the Swedish retailer in an uncomfortable position after the death of a prominent labor activist a year ago and a garment factory fire that killed more than 100 workers in November.