Supply Chain Matters Business Briefing Series- Supply Chain Risk Management and Mitigation

In a recent posting in December, we noted that the Supply Chain Matters blog will offer some new and different research and business briefing commentary in 2011.  The goal of this added series is to provide our readers more depth and insight mechanisms addressing the most  important topics directly related to global supply chain business process effectiveness in 2011 and beyond.

One increasingly important and critical issue for supply chain professionals is supply chain risk identification and mitigation.

Supply Chain Risk Management and Mitigation

Incidents of value chain risk and disruption have been a continuous occurrence across global supply chains. The year 2010 was no exception, and included headlines revolving around:

• Toyota’s sudden unattended acceleration product crisis involving multiple vehicle models
• Significant incidents of earthquakes, snowstorms and flooding impacting key global manufacturing centers
• An unprecedented manufacturing quality crisis involving Johnson & Johnson and its McNeill Consumer Products Division
• A terrorist attack involving the use of the global air cargo system to deliver an incendiary device
• The massive salmonella-related recall involving packaged fresh eggs in the U.S.

Supply chain risk management includes a systemic process to identify, evaluate, monitor, control and/or respond to perceived risk conditions. It refers to uncertain and/or unpredictable events affecting one or more organizations, companies or supply networks which have costly results to a business or to a brand.

There are many perceived reasons for these occurrences which can stem from operational, individual product, natural disaster or political and regulatory risk factors. In many cases the companies, organizations or teams impacted may have felt that they had adequate plans in place to either avoid or mitigate these occurrences.  Then again, firms may be in an unprecedented era of many so-called ‘black swan’ events and subsequent impacts.

Critical Challenges

We believe that the most important challenges and concerns related to this topic revolve around these questions:

• What are the various aspects of risk and where in the organization does the accountability for value chain risk reside?
• What are the most important components to a risk mitigation plan?
• How should organizations respond to a risk incident, and what roles do various supply chain functional teams play in a response and mitigation plan?
• How will social-media based communications impact a risk response strategy?
• What role can technology play in identifying and mitigating supply and value-chain risk?

Invitation for Guest Commentary

Our goal in this series is to provide objective insights and an interchange of ideas and learning among a community of cross-functional supply chain professionals.

With this posting, we are extending an invitation to various industry professionals to provide their thoughts and commentary regarding the specific challenges noted above.  A requirement, one that we will screen and edit, is that contributed commentary must be 1) balanced and objective and 2) not slanted to be obvious vendor product, service or corporate marketing content or pitches.  Submissions must not exceed 350-400 words in length, and responsibility for content accuracy and viewpoints lies with the author. Supply Chain Matters and its executive editor reserves the right to approve or reject any individual submissions prior to publishing on this blog.  Please include you name and a short biography, along with contact information.

Business Briefing Research Series

Supply Chain Matters will also be providing our own viewpoints and perspectives on these specific challenges in short downloadable research briefs made available throughout the year. If you are a technology vendor or services provider and would like to sponsor a particular briefing research brief related to this topic of supply and value chain risk management, please send an email to: info <at>supply-chain-matters <dot>com with your name and specific contact information, and we will follow-up.

Thank you.

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