Risk, Risk, Risk: 2011 Did Not Improve Matters Any

The World Economic Forum recently released it’s 6th Global Risks report, 2011 edition, and it’s filled with economic, environmental, societal, geopolitical, and technological risks that are plaguing global supply chains across the globe. Some of these have not changed since SI first reviewed the 2nd edition back in 2007, and some are new. However, they all have the potential to bring your supply chain to a grinding halt. In this series, we will review each category of risk, focus on a few risks of immediate relevance and discuss how they could impact an average supply chain.

At a high level, the risks identified were:

      Environmental

  • Air Pollution
  • Biodiversity Loss
  • Climate Change
  • Earthquakes & Volcanic Eruptions
  • Flooding
  • Ocean Governance
  • Storms & Cyclones
Technological

  • Critical Information Infrastructure Breakdown
  • Online Data and Information Security
  • Threats from New Technology
Societal

  • Chronic Disease
  • Demographic Challenges
  • Economic Disparity
  • Food Security
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Migration
  • Water Security
     
      Economic

  • Asset Price Collapse
  • Extreme Commodity Price Volatility
  • Extreme Consumer Price Volatility
  • Extreme Energy Price Volatility
  • Fiscal Crisis
  • Global Imbalances & Currency Volatility
  • Infrastructure Fragility
  • Liquidity / Credit Crunch
  • Regulatory Failures
  • Retrenchment from Globalization
  • Slowing Chinese Economy (<6%)
Geopolitical

  • Corruption
  • Fragile States
  • Geopolitical Conflict
  • Global Governance Failures
  • Illicit Trade
  • Organized Crime
  • Space Security
  • Terrorism
  • Weapons of Mass Destruction
     

That’s a lot of risk to consider, spread across five categories and thirty-seven risk types, each of which could manifest in dozens, or hundreds, of ways across your global supply chain. In the next five posts we’ll discuss what SI thinks are the top risks in each category and why.