Manufacturing growth has skyrocketed over the last few decades, but the industry continues to lag in growing its most important asset: its people. A spike in retirements, paired with a drop in analytical leaders entering the field, is creating demand for procurement and supply chain talent that far outpaces supply.
Businesses around the globe recognize that there is a new normal for supply chain risk management. The pandemic’s impact on global supply chains exposed vulnerabilities, created opportunities, and made embedding resiliency and agility into supply chains non-negotiable.
The light at the end of the tunnel is shining brighter for businesses that were forced to halt 2020 strategies and goals, customer acquisition and procurement. As the economy slowed to a halt, business leaders struggled to develop a risk management strategy that determined the how, why and when their COVID-19 safety protocols had been enacted. The waters were muddy because initial reopening strategies varied state by state and frequently changed based on infection rates in communities.
Following Earth month, where brands tend to overcommunicate their promises in using eco-friendly materials and renew their commitments to sustainable and ethical practices, how they are substantiating their claims is still unclear. While the stated sustainability goals may be high, so too are the reputational risks that brands must address if they do not deliver on their promises.
Organizations in the healthcare industry have always been a target for cyberattacks. Since the COVID-19 pandemic struck and sent the healthcare industry into chaos, the number of cyberattacks and attempts has increased exponentially.
Procurement organizations know that sustainability initiatives have far-reaching impacts on risk-management, cost and innovation. This is why most procurement teams historically invest in supplier compliance according to environment, social and governance (ESG) and sustainability risk-related issues.
The demand for sustainability is skyrocketing.
In March 2020, Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC)—the largest electric cooperative in the United States, servicing more than 346,000 accounts in Central Texas—had to go from being fully in-office to fully remote virtually overnight, like many organizations across North America during the COVID-19 health crisis.
Email management is a bigger challenge every year. In 2019, business email accounted for more than 128.8 billion emails sent and received per day, according to the Radicati Group. Adding to the challenge, many emails never make it to the right business account because they are sent to bulk accounts like info@company.com or sales@company.com.
After a bumper crop of cyber incidents last year, 2021 is seeing more small businesses turn to outsourced providers for security services than ever. 2020 saw a 20% growth in hacking attempts faced by U.K. businesses, made worse by an increase in attack complexity.
The supply chain is an often overlooked, yet critical, component of businesses everywhere. For a long time, the focus around supply chains has always been on efficiency and cost reduction. But when COVID-19 hit, weaknesses within the supply chain became readily apparent as traditional management approaches and technologies left businesses underequipped to tackle the huge surges in demand. This problem quickly became widespread. Whether it was a shortage of toilet paper on the consumer side or dropping supplies of microchips in the B2B world, no one was left unaffected.
With the impacts of COVID-19 still being felt around the world, it’s hard to look ahead at what might be coming next. But you should.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought a truly unprecedented level of disruption to global supply chains, bringing entire industries to a complete halt. It was unlike any supply chain crisis we’ve seen in modern times, but it was far from an isolated incident.
The worldwide crisis made us hyper-aware that trust-worthy relationships are vital. Effective third-party risk management is the best way to gain assurance that responses and decisions are risk-informed. Managing third-party relationships, calibrated for criticality and risks, has never been more critical. This is the most reliable path to strengthen business resilience, protect stakeholders and the bottom line.
The COVID-19 pandemic created a crisis of epic proportions and left leaders in every industry scrambling to react. Procurement leaders across the globe saw the weakness in their supply chains and needed to reinvent their ability to manage the data in order to make critical decisions. In fact, according to a recent survey by the Institute for Supply Management, upwards of 75% of companies saw supply chain disruptions in the wake of COVID-19.
Enterprise risk has never been a higher priority for businesses, executives and procurement practitioners than right now in light of the COVID-19 crisis. The coronavirus disruption has only accelerated many enterprise risks — from cyberthreats, employee health and safety, and most certainly, to supply risks affecting suppliers in complex value chains.
