I recently contributed an article to Middle Market Growth looking at how organizations can systematically identify supply chain vulnerabilities arising from coronavirus.
Here are the key takeaways from that piece:
- It's important to find out what you don't know. Business leaders must take steps to unearth weaknesses in supply chains in order to minimize disruption.
- You may know what's going on with your critical suppliers, but what about further down the supply chain? At times like this, it's critical to have in-depth talks with your suppliers and understand what pressures they might be facing that could impact your business.
- Many mid-sized organizations are not equipped with technology to effectively handle supply chain disruptions on this scale. Email, spreadsheets and other manual processes can fall short when you're forced to assess potentially thousands of vendors at once.
- Critical questions to ask your suppliers may include:
- What is their lag time? Current inventory levels?
- Do they have staffing or contingency plans in place?
- Have their suppliers missed any deliveries?
- Where to they see themselves in 30, 60 or 90 days?
Like all things, this too shall pass. Taking a systematic and technology-focused approach to assessing your supply chain will put your organization in a good position to weather the next disruption.
Interested to read more? View the complete article on Middle Market Growth.