Pathway to Profit - #133

Where's the Trust?

The dictionary tells me the definition of trust is:

Trust. Noun.

1. ? ? Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc. of a person or thing. Confidence.

2. ? ? Confident expectation of something; hope.

3. ? ? A person on whom or thing on which one relies.

Two-fifths of people have changed their view of Coles and Woolworths after the ACCC, Australia’s consumer watchdog, took legal action against our two big supermarket chains. This is in addition to those who had negative feelings about supermarkets due to the “cost-of-living crisis”.

Almost all the big banks have had some action taken against them, the most recent being those against Macquarie and ANZ for different offences. The ANZ issue was due to bond trading irregularities, and Macquarie’s was due to ignoring three warnings from ASIC about three of its customers attempting to game the energy market. I don’t think banks have had the public’s trust since they did away with the local bank manager.

Australia’s public broadcaster, the ABC, previously considered a trusted source, is fighting significant claims of a left bias in their reporting and, more recently, charges of manipulating the sound used in a story by artificially adding several additional gunshots than were in the original recording. Today, all media has a slant and it’s not trusted. The government’s misinformation legislation is also being criticised for a biased approach.

The financial advisor industry is now under heavy regulation to weed out unscrupulous people from the industry.

Large consulting firms have been shown to have little regard for confidential information and little concern for conflicts of interest.

Trust in Your Supply Chain

Recent events in the Middle East, where hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded, killing 12 and injuring thousands – it seems clear now that Israel managed to insert themselves or operatives into the supply chain of the technology companies supplying this equipment to Hezbollah and tampered with shipments.

A former U.S. intelligence officer said these attacks were the latest in a series of supply chain-related attacks worldwide. These acts now put people’s trust in their supply chains at risk. The official said interdiction operations (where goods are intercepted and tampered with before delivery to their ultimate recipient) are rampant. To add fuel to the fire, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned in April that China had prepositioned cyber attackers to “wreak havoc on our critical infrastructure at a time of its choosing”. In today’s interconnected supply chain, everything could come to a halt, just as the CrowdStrike issue highlighted.

Have you considered where your supply chain vulnerabilities are? What would the impact on your business be if someone infiltrated your supply chain?

With technology being deployed across supply chains, such as modern ERP systems and advanced supply chain collaboration tools and techniques, now is the time to review where your supply chain is at risk and identify how you respond to these disruptions. There are five key themes you can look at to help.

1. Organisations need to improve the level of visibility they have in all aspects of their supply chain.
2. The level of control over the activities in your supply chain has also become more critical now. What is happening in those outsourced parts of your supply chain?
3. The speed at which information travels throughout the supply chain now becomes a critical component.
4. Forge strategic alliances with key suppliers and treat them with care and not as commodities.
5. Find opportunities to reshore or near- and friendly-shore supply.

My 4V supply chain model can help you diagnose the steps you need to take.

If you want to know more about how this can help you, reach out to book a time for a virtual coffee.

If you're an executive or owner of a mid-sized or large company and want to discuss ideas on how you can use supply chain tools, business systems and technology to dramatically improve efficiency, decrease costs, increase profits and enhance scalability, give me a call.

Until next time...

Sincerely,

David