“It's not organizations that are competing. It's the supply chains that are competing.” - Wael Safwat, Head of Procurement - SCMAO
Your business is running smoothly as long as its supply chain is active, continuous and secure. How are we ensuring or being assured by our suppliers that our business' interests are safe and secure?
Supply chain breaches are still making headlines across the globe. In 2020, IBM's analysis estimated an average cost of security breach at $3.86 million with the top breaches costing around $392 million. With the increasing attacks on supply chain, one can only guesstimate what the impacts are in the current year. Read more here. Not to mention that due to covid, dependencies on supply chain have increased manifold.
Supply chain risks can come in many forms and unexpectedly. A tsunami in Japan can affect a business in inland landlocked Mongolia. Supply chain can be broken due to the following:
• Raw material shortage
• Disaster at location of the supplier (war, natural disasters)
• Piracy issues
• Strike
• Trade wars (Intellectual property disputes)
• Enroute Accidents (goods train derailment)
How can we assess and mitigate the broad range of Risks the suppliers carry as seen above? Part of the challenge is that there is no single definition to supply chain security. It’s a broad area that includes everything from physical threats to cyber threats to natural disasters to bankruptcy.
This mandates organizations to perform risk assessment for all critical vendors and suppliers as diligently as you would do for your own departments. It is essential to assess the negative impacts upfront and mitigate them. Keep following up with the supplier on all their open risks. Remember, mitigating supplier risks is always a moving target and challenging. So, choose a supplier who is serious about security and availability. Check suppliers’ BCP and perform periodic exercises with them to collaboratively improve upon mutual capabilities during response and recoveries.
How can you find out which supplier is secure for you? Let us help you conduct the risk assessment. Our experts can help you.
At Gorisco, our motto is 'Embedding Resilience' and we are committed to make the organizations and their workforce resilient. Reach out to us if you have any queries, clarifications or need any support on your initiatives.
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