The Point

Those who are optimists see the glass half full and those who aren't see it as half empty. There is also a saying : Plan for the worst and hope for the best.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to participate in development of a business continuity plan. My first instinct was that this was going to be a waste of time. Nothing is ever going to happen so why talk about it. As we went through it, there were so many considerations. The first of which was to know the locations of all the associates and did we have emergency contact information easily accessible for their families. We failed miserably on that simple one never mind any of the more complicated ones.

Much of the news this week has been reviewing the events of a year ago when a tsunami hit Japan. Like most things of this nature, it seems impossible that a year has passed.  The rebuilding is a massive undertaking and will be years and decades in the making.

This event displayed the risk and exposure that so many companies have within their supply chain. With the globalization of businesses, events around the world can significantly impact operations and profits.

I found this article in Industry Week very appropriate as it discussed the risk and lessons learned over the past year. So many organizations have survived but not many really changed much in the interim. Those that are building a strategy have followed some of what is discussed in this article.

This week’s Zycus sponsored webinar featured main speaker Robert Handfield, the Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at NC State. My notes from the event are below. As of these notes being posted, the webinar is not yet available on demand but if it becomes available we will link to it so you can listen for yourself.

I’m planning to cover the ‘Changing Face of Procurement’ as soon as it comes out this afternoon, but this morning I’d like to briefly take you through this week’s Supply & Demand Chain Exec webinar on ‘Identifying and Managing Supply Chain Risk sponsored by Aravo. A Principal Analyst at Forrester made use of some fabulous vocabulary words as she spoke about managing risk. I’ll give you my favorite two here with definitions. I love it when people dust off truly descriptive “big words” and use them comfortably in a presentation. Professional development is not just about getting a better understanding of the subject being discussed, but also giving our minds something fresh to chew on. See if you can both words in conversation today – without getting yourself in any trouble of course.

Recent disasters, whether earthquakes, tsunamis, or tornadoes, have threatened business continuity for many industries. As has been pointed out in many recent procurement webinars, this presents an opportunity for us to step up and prove our strategic value to the organization. We cannot, however, rely solely upon the stories in the news.  We need to educate ourselves and be prepared with suggestions.