Crime, climate and convergence emerge as dominant risks to the global supply chain, according to a BSI report.
"The past few years have put a spotlight on global supply chains and reinforced their crucial role in our day-to-day life. Because of this unprecedented moment, the supply chain is about to have a make-or-break year and needs to be right at the top of the C-suite agenda. It's clear that the importance of supply chains will only increase as we head into 2022, and the steps organizations take now will ultimately determine their success or failure,” says Susan Taylor Martin, chief executive at BSI.
"Supply chain threats will remain one of the most serious issues global businesses will face in 2022. Widespread product shortages and scarcely qualified operators, including lorry-drivers, are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ongoing global supply chain crisis. With manufacturers and freight companies already spending much effort to address these issues, organizations along the supply chain increasingly fall vulnerable to a convergence of additional threats. Those include more frequent and damaging natural disasters and more opportunistic criminal cartels. Unless these threats are addressed holistically and quickly by supply chain leaders, consumers are likely to see current challenges continue and worsen over time,” adds Harold Pradal, chief commercial officer of BSI.
"As we continue to manage a multitude of challenges, including COVID, climate change and natural disasters, we have seen the convergence of impacts on organizations and the global community, illustrating the broad-brush consequences of disruptions and threats to our supply chains and the importance of not underestimating their complexities,” says Jim Yarbrough, BSI's global intelligence program manager.
From PR Newswire:
- Drug cartels around the world are becoming more creative. BSI saw the numbers and quantities of cocaine seizures in Europe increase steadily in 2020 and 2021, and are expected to continue to rise in 2022.
- While 2021 has seen a trend of higher-than-average shipping delays rebound, disruptions to the global supply chain like Hurricane Ida in August in the United States and Typhoon Chanthu in September in China have cumulatively caused various delays of shipment volume arriving infrequently at Californian facilities. This has put renewed stress on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which account for about one-third of all U.S. imports.
- An overarching threat to supply chains is the risk that individual considerations such as business continuity, sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and security are not addressed comprehensively, and that organizations fail to acknowledge that they are interrelated. Business continuity threats can lead to security threats and vice versa.
