Risks in virtual enterprise networks and supply chains

Posted on 2009-07-21 by

Revised on: 2015-09-05

It is not unusual for suppliers in a supply chain to come together and act as a Virtual Enterprise Network (VEN) and today’s supply chains exhibit many VEN-like features. Is managing risks in Virtual Enterprise Networks different from managing risks in supply chains? With this in mind I submitted a paper to MITIP2009, the 11th International Conference on the Modern Information Technology in the Innovation Processes of the Industrial Enterprises, to be held in Bergamo, Italy, in October.

A conceptual framework

The title of the paper is From Risks in Supply Chains to Risk in Virtual Enterprise Networks: Ideas, Concepts and a Framework.

Conceptual in its approach and drawing from other areas of research, this paper introduces four distinct groups of VENS, namely Constrained, Directed, Limited and Free VEN, and concludes that VEN risk management can and should learn from supply chain risk management. The abstract was accepted and I have now submitted my final paper. The final paper will be made available on this website after the conference.

The paper is largely based on my submission for a book chapter titled A Conceptual Framework for Risk and Vulnerability in Virtual Enterprise Networks for the book on Managing Risk in Virtual Enterprise Networks: Implementing Supply Chain Principles. The chapter has been accepted, pending some final revisions, and will hopefully be available in print by the end of this year or early in 2010. See my brief pre-review of Managing Risk in Virtual Enterprise networks.