PART 15. SUPPLY CHAIN LOGISTICS – RISK MATURITY
This series presents A LEADERSHIP STRATEGY, as the subtitle indicates. They use Supply Chain and Logistics as the focal point for discussing contextual leadership in the face complexity, randomness, risk, flexibility, agility and non-rational decision making. In them I discuss the multi-dimensional approach to leadership: what is leadership? How do we lead? What is our capacity to lead? And specifically, they look at leadership from the perspectives of risk, ambiguity, uncertainty, beyond command and control process management.
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Global Supply Chain Logistics is a complex system; we need to develop systems thinking, distinct from process thinking. Global Supply Chain Logistics is a business eco-system; we need to develop a more organic and holistic approach to how Global SCL works within multiple environments.
To move from robust to resilient Global Supply Chain Logistics, we need to look more closely at the nature and scope of Global Supply Chain Logistics:
· Global SCL is both a strategy and a process.
· Global SCL is about value creation, managing inter-organizational relationships, balancing multiple goals and agendas, and handling differences.
· Global SCL involves inventory optimization and network design.
· Global SCL demands holistic thinking and contextual leadership capabilities.
Organizationally, Global Supply Chain Logistics plays different roles and has multiple responsibilities:
· At the strategic level, it is responsible for delivering value, developing the business and competing successfully in global markets.
· At the organizational level, it is responsible for network and channel design, and managing inter-organizational relationships along those complex networks.
· At the process level, it is responsible for flow patterns, mitigating risks, managing landed costs, and delivering products in the marketplace.
· At the personal level, it is responsible for competitive leadership and professional competence, aka, sustaining a culture of trust.
The very nature and scope of Global SCL, how it is positioned within the organization, and how it operates all entail risk. The causes of risk are inherent in Global Supply Chain Logistics itself:
A Global SCL Risk Management Portfolio is less about risk avoidance and risk prevention, and more about risk acceptance and risk mitigation [see Blog 9].
The effectiveness of any Risk Management Portfolio depends on the “risk maturity” of the organization generally and of Global SCL in particular. Enterprise Risk Maturity [ERM] depends on how prepared an organization is to handle risk as a company:
Global SCL Risk Maturity depends on how prepared an organization’s supply chain is to handle risk:
Establishing organizational excellence, seeing strength in risk and leveraging risk knowledge to competitive advantage are the foundation on which Global SCL strategy becomes flexible and agile.
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SPONSOR: The Logistics Institute is a Canadian-based professional organization delivering programs that enable practitioners to become certified professionals by earning P.Log, LS, and SC designations. Institute programs are competency based; they validate capability, not just knowledge. By earning these designations one is recognized as a professional and a strategic leader in Global Supply Chain Logistics. For further information go to www.loginstitute.ca