Research from the British Standards Institute (BSI) has found that global supply chains gained a combined $56bn in extra costs last year, incurred by crime, extreme weather, terrorist threats and the migrant crisis that swept across Europe.
From a purely business standpoint, considerations of where and how to build facilities (or alter existing ones) to lessen climate risk have moved up the risk management priority list. Such moves can ward off costly business stoppages in the event of extreme weather events. Perhaps more significant, on an ongoing basis, they also earn lower property insurance premiums.
Most of us take the weather report with a grain of salt. How many times has the meteorologist on the evening news told us that rain is coming later in the week, yet we find ourselves soaked to the skin by the time we get home from work the next day?
Analyst Insight: Top leadership involvement in governing IT risk strategies and identifying the right practices to manage those risks is a requirement for any organization looking to have effective supply chain security. Today's IT landscape requires an accelerated level of knowledge sharing of IT risk practices and solutions, both with suppliers and within the enterprise. Leaders have to change how information is communicated and shared throughout the organization. - Andrea Stroud, research program manager, APQC
Back in 2013, Flextronics, a $30bn manufacturer and services organization, talked about its slant towards supply chain risk through constant improvement in supply chain visibility, agility and control. Flextronics defined visibility as "the ability of all members of a chain to see from one end of the pipeline to another" and control as "the ability to respond to disturbances in a timely manner with effective actions." - Gregory L. Schlegel CPIM, CSP, Jonah, Founder, The Supply Chain Risk Management Consortium, Executive in Residence and Adjunct Professor, Supply Chain Risk Management, Lehigh University
For some people, even to discuss the impact on an economy, let alone financial markets, of a tragedy such as the Paris attacks is poor taste. But one of the aims of terrorists is to cause economic and financial damage; hence the attacks on Wall Street on 9/11 or on tourists in Tunisia earlier this year. So the issue is worth considering.
The City of New Orleans and private businesses that struggled to survive the devastation of Hurricane Katrina learned some valuable lessons. One of the primary caveats when it comes to business continuity is to mitigate risk by embracing the cloud.
The global business community should be aware that the impact on supply chain operations worldwide - from the two massive explosions that occurred Aug. 12 at the Ruihai International Logistics warehouse in Tianjin, China - will be far worse than suggested by news analysts and Chinese officials, says Resilinc CEO Bindiya Vakil.
Resilinc Corp. has joined with the International Consortium for Organization Resilience (ICOR) to create a management course on supply-chain resiliency.
