Supply Chain Security & Risk Management: Broken Links, Destroyed Structures, Hidden Signals and Long-Term Change

Significant aspects of global and local supply chains are in disarray, destroyed and distorted to a much higher degree than is individually reported or visible.

That is, what was once a 'given' in supply chain activity, services and assurance has all but eviscerated over the past couple of years, and it is getting worse, to the point of being dire in many industries and product verticals.

This includes people, talent, expertise and professional services.

As a result, the singular and collective security and risk levels for nations, brands, goods and communities continues to skyrocket, heading into the second year of the pandemic.

The network of organisations that are involved, through upstream and downstream linkages, in the different processes and activities that produce value in the form of products and services in the hands of the ultimate customer (Christopher, 2005)

In recent times, both supply and chain have become inconsistent expression to explain what is happening.

In other words, there is no constant supply nor is there a chain. It remains a stop-start, ad-hoc, best effort basis with countless work arounds, alternate/substitute solutions and delaying tactics by both providers, suppliers and sellers.

Both traditional and demand-driven supply models are in a constant state of flux, to the point of chaos.

Established security and risk management models are stretched to breaking point, with many already broken.

Whereas, those that are still in crisis mode and haven't yet implemented or fully considered sustainable security and risk management structures, systems and people... are already fatally behind the risk and recovery curve.

Many don't yet know it.

The range of situational crime prevention measures in evidence, including many new technologies and different types of certifications (Urciuoli, 2009) means that "supply chain managers are experiencing the difficulty of choosing among extensive sets of security measures", and some have argued that they are often not well placed to choose between the options they have before them, often because there is a lack of guidance on how best to approach prevention (Haelterman et al., 2012).

Information, knowledge, facts and data are disrupted across supply chains, providers, management and sellers.

Therefore the 'picture' is incomplete and uncertainty has become a greater factor than ever before.

Countries are now resorting to using and opening emergency reserves, activating the military and repurposing entire industries to compensate for supply chain, support and services failings... not just in the healthcare and pandemic response areas either.

Food security, human security, community safety, medical resilience, national security and societal resilience are all in various states of flux, distortion or catastrophic failure.

As a result, all past evaluations and calculations of risk, including security in both the public and private sense, are invalid and outdated.

If you are not making risk decisions with extant information, knowledge and data, you are already adding your own risk to the system which is overwhelmed, volatile and uncertain.

Which could be the proverbial last straw

What does your complexity and network risk discussion look like? How are you approaching this wicked problem?

Tony Ridley, MSc CSyP MSyl M.ISRM

Security, Risk & Management Sciences

References:

Christopher, M. (2005). Logistics and supply chain management—creating value-adding networks. London: Prentice Hall.

Haelterman, H., Callens, M. and Van der Beken, T. (2012). Controlling Access to Pick- up and Delivery Vans: the Cost of Alternative Measures,European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 18 (2), pp.163-182

Urciuoli, L. (2009). 'Supply chain security - mitigation measures and a logistics multi- layered framework'. Journal of Transportation Security, 3(1), pp.1-28