"Building Resilient Supply Chains for effective risk management": compulsory learning for everyone?!

"Building Resilient Supply Chains for effective Risk Management” A Linkedin Learning course has now been released.?I may be biased but should this not be compulsory training for everyone in all companies who have a supply chain??

Value Creation and Protection for the organisation

At Cranfield on an annual basis, I complete short courses on a variety of subjects including?Fire Safety, Environmental Awareness, Diversity, information security and data protection to name a few. My line manager holds me to account for completing these in my bi-annual development reviews, so I don’t become a risk to myself and others!

The reason why all employees at the University are required to complete these is to protect the business, ourselves and reduce risk.?All employees need to know how to act and respond appropriately, as an individual my personal actions can destroy the value and reputation of the University, and ultimately impact on the lives of others.?I don’t need to become a professional firefighter or data protection expert, but I do need to be aware and act appropriately to protect our business and others, and this awareness and knowledge needs to be refreshed regularly.

The Supply Chain is the Business!

For many businesses, “the supply chain is the business” it can create and protect value, gain competitive advantage, but also if managed poorly destroy our competitive position, it can enhance shareholder value but also significantly reduce it.?It needs to be recognised that every decision and action within a business can impact the risk profile of a supply chain.

Every person who makes decisions impacts on the risk profile of a supply chain

So everyone in a business needs to ensure supply chain resilience is front of mind when making decisions. A supply chain risk management culture is required where people continue to ask "how will this decision impact on those within my company and supply chain". Our human resources colleagues make decision that ultimately impact the risk profile of supply chains, as do our finance teams, and obviously those involved in operations, procurement, and supply chain.?Managing supply chain risk is not something that takes place in a single function or silo, it is a process that everyone should be part of.

Making the complex accessible for learning

My vision for this course was to enable individuals to learn why supply chain resilience is critically important for every company, how to build resilience, and how to manage risk to protect and sustain competitive advantage. To keep things concise not every element of this subject could be addressed in a short course but the key foundations, principles and approaches could be covered.

When designing this course with the Linkedin team my objective was to ensure that a seemingly complex area of supply chain resilience and risk management could be made accessible to all, a journey that started a couple of years ago but has been brought into sharp focus due to recent "black swan" events.

The content of the course is based on my experience of building supply chain resilience. It requires awareness of the external sources of risk and disruption, the internal risks, and the relationship between the elements of the "complexity triangle" which creates uncertainty. It requires the design of a resilient supply chain strategy, and building products and services that promote a resilient supply chain, and how agility and flexibility can help you respond to risks and minimize disruptions. Other important topics covered to support the resilient supply chain include relationships, culture, transparency, and risk monitoring. Importantly taking a look at risk management international standards I have found beneficial as they provide useful frameworks to get individuals started and also frameworks to check we have all things covered, for example; how to identify, analyze, and evaluate risks; and how to monitor and review supply chain risks.

Today as seemingly flocks of black swan events continue to land on our supply chain, should we ensure everyone in our business is aware of the foundations of supply chain resilience and risk management??After all, our profits, people and the planet are increasingly dependant on the supply chains we are part of.

How to use the "Supply Chain Resilience and Risk Management course" as a resource.

I hope this will be a useful resource to our profession, many businesses have free access to Linkedin Learning through licencing agreements and it is often possible to get a free trial.

For Practitioners - utilise the course to as a framework to check you have addressed the essential foundations within your business. Use it to provoke discussions at Team meetings. Do like, share and comment on the course within the Linkedin Learning environment this will enable everyone to engage in the ideas and discuss. Roll out the course across your supply chain and utilise it to initiate debate. Some elements are purposely controversial.

For Academics - The course can be readily be used as pre-learning in the area of Supply Chain Resilience and Risk Management. The individual lessons can be utilised as the basis for class based discussions but also the entire course can be integrated into existing courses and assessed. e.g. the course is completed, integrated tests undertaken and then a University assessment taken by students to earn academic credit within the educational establishment. It can also be utilised as part of "learning pathways" within the Linkedin Learning environment.