Blog Archives

Next time in China: Guanxi

Guanxi: Connections and relations are what matter most, while contracts, rules and laws are to likely to be overridden if they are in conflict with harmonious relations.

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Supply Chain Risk: Culture Shock

Is culture shock the reason why so many global and cross-culture business relationships fail? When it comes to Western buyers and Chinese suppliers this may very well be the case, and while issues related to product quality or supplier reliability may seem as the obvious cause externally, cultural differences may be the root cause internally.

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Supply chain vulnerability: Mitigation strategies

Which mitigation strategy that works best when faced with which supply chain catastrophe? This is a paper that every supply chain manager should read, at least once.

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Business Continuity in Global Supply Chains

Essentially, there is no difference between a business continuity plan for one organization, compared to a business continuity plan for a whole supply chain. What differs is the complexity

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Less cost and less disruptions?

If you know that your shipment will arrive late, you are perhaps less concerned with not being just in time? The Danish shipping giant Maersk has halved its top cruising speed over the last two years, thus cutting fuel costs, cutting emissions and perhaps cutting disruptions costs, too?

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Supply Chain Risk: Invasive Species

The global network of ships criss-crossing the oceans provide perhaps the most important mode of transportation for the spread of invasive species that “hitch-hike” with these ships.

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Risks in maritime supply chains

Sea transport constitutes the major part of almost every supply chain, and is thus a major contributor to risks in the supply chain.

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Risk Management in Global Supply Chain Networks

Supply Chain Risks can be classified as either one of these three, Deviation, Disruption or Disaster, and can be approached using either a Preventive or an Interceptive approach; the former attempts to build in risk tolerance, the latter attempts to contain the damage or impact of an undesired event.

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The Box is back!

A year ago the BCC started “The Box” project, where BBC News is following a shipping container for a whole year to tell the story of globalisation. The Box is back where it started

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Book Review: Single Point of Failure

This book shows you how everyone is involved in the supply chain itself, often on several levels at the same time, how the chain is exposed to an infinite number of constantly changing threats; how weak links in the chain represent threats and vulnerabilities, to profitability, continuity, safety and health; and how these threats can be mananged, reduces and eliminated.

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Rigorous Risk Management

Risk management is emerging as a key focus area for corporations, especially in terms of the extended supply chain. As they take on expanded responsibilities for global sourcing, supply chain managers are also increasingly required to manage risk in terms of brand, reputation, and ethical sourcing, not just procurement and purchasing risks.

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What’s so special about this Paul Kleindorfer?

Apparently there must be something really special about Paul Kleindorfer. Otherwise there would be no reason for Morris A Cohen and Howard Kunreuther to write their tribute to him.

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Book Review: Global Supply Chain Management

This is a handbook indeed, allowing the reader to focus on one area of investigation at the time, while never leaving the whole chain out of sight. My interest in it stems from the fact that it contains a chapter on risk management.

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Lean + Agile = LeAgile: a happy marriage?

Opposites attract and in the supply chain world, “lean” and “agile” appear to be opposites. Both management strategies have their advantages and disadvantages.

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Lean logistics = risky logistics?

Lean does not necessarily make you more vulnerable or less robust towards supply chain disruptions. Lean implies agile, and agile is what is needed to overcome supply chain disruptions.

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Global supply chain risk management strategies

Three factors affect the selection of risk management strategies: temporal focus, supply chain flexibility and supply chain environment.

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The BBC box

I usually watch the BBC World Business Report every morning and today I learned that BBC News is following a shipping container for a whole year to tell the story of globalisation.

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Airports – vital to supply chains?

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. 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

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.

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Global Supply Chain Risk Management

Finally it appears that someone has developed an easy, hands-on, not-so-academic and straightforward approach to global supply chain risk management. When I say finally, it is because it is not often that I come across papers that have fully grasped the concept of supply chain risk management and made it look so easy at the same time.

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ARTICLES and PAPERS
Managing risk together
Purchasing theory... I have to admit it's not one of my particular strongholds, but several of my re[...]
Ericsson versus Nokia - the now classic case of supply chain disruption
When faced with a supply chain disruption, proactive and reactive supply chain risk management can i[...]
BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS
Book Review: How Nature Works
How Nature works is a fascinating book. I first heard of the late Per Bak and his sandpile theories [...]
Book Review: Creative Destruction
Like with so many of my other recent book reviews I came across Nolan and Croson's book, Creative De[...]
REPORTS and WHITEPAPERS
Managing supply chain risk
In September and October 2009 the Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 500 company executives with r[...]
Creating the resilient supply chain
This blog is about supply chain risk, business continuity and transport vulnerability, and while I h[...]
from HERE and THERE
2nd Supply Chain Risk Management Seminar
Do you remember the 1st Supply Chain Risk Management Seminar Barcelona 2009? I made a post about it [...]
Migrants and European supply chains
Truckers caught up in Europe's migrant crisis say business is increasingly disrupted by queues and s[...]