Tag Archives: global risks

Global Risks 2012

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Revised on: 2012-01-23

Are economic imbalances and social inequality risk reversing the gains of globalization? Should we shift our concern from environmental risks to socioeconomic risks? Will further economic shocks and social upheaval roll back the progress globalization has brought? How well are the world’s institutions equipped to cope with today’s interconnected and rapidly evolving risks? These are the questions asked by the seventh edition of the Global Risk Report, just out.

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Supply Chain Security

Revised on: 2011-10-17

Today’s supply chains circle the globe and form the backbone of world trade and a are major factor in the global economy, linking countries far from us as if they were our neighbors. The world is becoming smaller, no doubt. But this increasingly tighter connected world is also increasingly dangerous, and it thus imperative to secure supply chains against any form of man-made and natural disruption. So say PwC in the lastest volume of their Transportation & Logistics 2030 series: Securing the supply chain. Based on a survey of a global group of experts using the RealTime Delphi method, this well-founded report highlights and explores what elements of supply chain security they believe will be most critical in the future.

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Supply Chain and Transport Risk

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Revised on: 2015-09-10

We are living in a new world of risk that is making this world unprecedentedly complex and challenging for corporations, institutions and states alike. Supply chains are no exception, and in our quest for greater efficiency and greater choice, are we really developing robust global transport networks or simply building a house of cards? That is what the Supply Chain and Transport Risk Initiative, nested within the Risk Response Network (RRN) of the World Economic Forum is trying to answer. The aim is to develop better international risk management mechanisms and improved crisis response across the public and private sectors to deal with the major risk of disruption in transport and supply chains. This post takes a closer look at this initiative and what it is up to.

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Global Risk and Compliance – Are you protected?

Revised on: 2015-09-09

Trade Compliance and Export Control are not just buzzwords in global supply chain. They represent significant risks. Breach of trade rules and regulations can have serious ramifications for businesses, ranging from mere fines to loss of contract, not to mention loss of reputation, and even bankruptcy if the breach should result in long-lasting and costly legal litigations. Consequently, knowing the risks and their impacts is important for any company involved in global trade and that is the topic of the latest webinar by WTG, Global Risk and Compliance – Are you protected?, presented by Neill Cooke, Ethics and Compliance Manager at UK-based IMI plc. Using practical examples, this webinar will outline various risks and their consequences for international companies, and I for one look forward to listening and watching this webinar.
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Call for papers: Global Supply Chain Risk Management

Revised on: 2011-03-21

Are you currently planning to write or actually writing a paper on supply chain risk and wondering what would be a good journal to publish it in? Here is one for you: A special issue of Production and Operations Management titled Global Supply Chain Risk Management. The goal of this special issue is to publish high quality and relevant research on new ways to manage risk in global complex supply chain networks. Considering how interconnected and interrelated global supply chains are, its not surprising that this topic appears in one special issue after the other in one journal after the other. For supply chain risk researchers like me this is an advantage, as it is often easier to get published in a special issue than in a regular issue.

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2010 – the year of catastrophe

Revised on: 2011-03-22

It’s Sunday and time for some weekend reflections, aka browsing the Internet for blogs and websites to indulge in and this is what I found: “In a world where almost every company relies on global supply chains and an international network of outsourced activities, a freak event many thousands of miles away can have a potentially devastating impact on business at home”. These are the opening words of a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, an article that paints 2010 as the year of the catastrophe, and the insurance company Swiss Re estimates that worldwide economic losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters reached $222 billion last year – more than triple the losses in 2009. This clearly underlines how critical it is that companies have a firm strategy in place to deal with the unexpected. As I discovered when digging into this article, the Wall Street Journal, not surprisingly, has a whole section devoted to corporate risk, and it is a section well worth studying.

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Risky cities – want to work there?

Revised on: 2010-09-30

If you are doing global business, do you know where you are at risk and what risk that is most pertinent to that area? Most likely not, I would guess. AON, who in 2009 published the political risk map, identifying where supply chain risks are on the rise, has now published a people risk map that shows which countries are high or low risk. The accompanying report provides “a comparative overview of risks associated with recruitment, employment and relocation in 90 cities worldwide. These ratings enables companies to compare risk by location, identify the reasons for the risks, and determine actions to address these risks.” Is it as good as it sounds? Well, let’s have a closer look at the map and the report.

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Outsourcing – risking it all?

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Revised on: 2015-09-12

“The world is at risk and the supply chain is not exempt.” Are you scared? “Supply risk used to be defined as the potential for strikes by transport workers, fires at a key supplier’s plant, or missed deliveries. That simple vision no longer applies.” These pompous words mark the beginning of today’s article, Supply chain risk in an uncertain global supply chain environment, written by Jack Barry in 2004. His article raises some essential supply chain questions, and reminds us that global sourcing may be low cost, but not low risk.

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Book Review: Single Point of Failure

Revised on: 2015-09-11

Just out a few days ago, Single Point of Failure is a fascinating read. The author, Gary S. Lynch, is Global Leader, Supply Chain Risk Management Practice at Marsh Consulting, so he knows what he is talking about. The book’s tagline reads “The 10 Essential Laws of Supply Chain Risk Management” and what Gary Lynch is trying to convey is that there are certain basics every manager should know, understand, and act upon. Lynch breaks down Supply Chain Management into ten basic laws, neither founded in academic theories or mathematical formulas, but simple basic principles that anyone can appreciate.

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Book Review: Global Supply Chain Management

Revised on: 2015-09-11

The Handbook of Global Supply Chain Management is an excellent book. My interest in it stems from the fact that it contains a chapter on risk management. It was after reading Manuj and Mentzer’s articles on Global Supply Chain Risk Management and Global Supply Chain Risk Management Strategies that I came across this book, when searching for more papers from Mentzer and/or Manuj, and naturally, I decided to see if there was something on supply chain risk in it. There was.

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Supply chain disruption risk on the rise

Revised on: 2015-09-23

Global supply chains are increasingly becoming more vulnerable to potential disruption to trade, says Aon, one of the world’s leading providers of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage. Every year, Aon publishes a political risk map, and in 2009 the number of countries tagged with ‘supply chain vulnerability’ has increased from 38 to 54 due to risks ranging from government embargo or interference with a supplier through to strikes, terrorism and sabotage.

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Global Risks 2009 – Countries at risk?

Revised on: 2015-09-02

How will the current financial downturn affect supply chains? That’s what we all wonder about, isn’t it? I was hoping that the annual Global Risks report, published by the World Economic Forum would shed some light on that, picking up on their 2008 subject, Hyper-optimization and supply chain vulnerability: an invisible global risk?. But, the 2009 report did not follow up that particular subject, it went in a different direction, taking a broader look, not a certain industries or sectors or parts of the economy, but looking at whole countries and their risk preparedness. What the financial crisis has shown, is that the globalized world is interconnected.

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Airports – vital to supply chains?

Revised on: 2011-03-29

Is the temporary shut-down of Bangkok’s two international airports important in a supply chain perspective? So far, the issue has been stranded tourists, maybe as many as 100000. Now it’s also becoming a major headache for the tourist industry and subsequently for Thailand’s national economy, loosing as much as $85 million per day, according to the BBC News. Not only that, air freight will also be impacted, but why is this important?
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Strategies for managing risk in multinational corporations

Revised on: 2015-09-03

In my post two days ago, reviewing the article by Manuj and Mentzer (2008) titled Global Supply Chain Risk Management, I mentioned that they cited a paper by Ghoshal (1987) titled Global Strategy: An Organizing Framework as one of their references for listing risk management strategies. Today, I will take a closer look at that paper. The word “supply chain” doesn’t even appear once in Ghoshal’s paper, but why is this paper so interesting in a supply chain risk perspective?

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Global Risks 2008 – A prediction come true

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Revised on: 2011-07-15

In my post on Hyper-optimization and supply chain vulnerability: an invisible global risk? I highlighted some of the issues in Global Risks 2008, a report prepared by the World Economic Forum. It is now frightening to see how true the predictions in this report were, in particular, how it predicted the current economic downturn. Maybe we should pay more attention to these reports?

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Supply chain vulnerability: an invisible global risk?

Revised on: 2011-07-15

Supply chain disruption – a global issue? All companies and governments dependent on external suppliers are exposed to the risks of disruption in their supply chain. But the extent and complexity of current global supply chains mean that the problem of supply chain management is not limited to a single enterprise or industry: even a relatively small supply chain disruption caused by a global risk event may ultimately have consequences across the global economic system.

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A risky business? The top 10 challenges of offshoring

Revised on: 2011-03-21

Organisations embarking on offshoring face multiple challenges; many of which can be extremely daunting. In A risky business? The top 10 challenges of offshoring the Director of Global Sourcing at EquaTerra, Sridhar Vedala, explores the top 10 challenges of offshoring today and provides suggestions on how to tackle them head on. Although there are many challenges associated with offshoring, through proper planning and due diligence, they can be overcome.

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Managing risk in global supply chains

Revised on: 2015-09-09

The book Strategies for Building Successful Global Businesses, by the INSEAD-Wharton Alliance on Globalizing, contains 6 articles on managing risk and uncertainty. Today I will look at one of these articles that deserves further mentioning: Managing risk in global supply chains by Paul W. Kleindorfer and Luk N. van Wassenhove.

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