Category Archives: Risk Management

Five Years Ago We Told You to Blame the Bankers …

… for the biggest risks in your supply chain, as per our classic post where we told you don’t blame the lawyers, blame the bankers because they were ultimately responsible for three of the top four most likely risks to disrupt your supply chain.

(Even though the doctor can sympathize with William Shakespeare when he said the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers, the lawyers are not responsible for the current state of the global economy, the bankers are. And while it’s true that the lawyers are not innocent, happily taking the bankers money to do things that disrupt entire economies, it is the bankers that were the ringleaders here.)

But do we still blame all the bankers? Well, yes, we blame them for the economic risks that continue to persist to this day. But we no longer blame them for the top three risks in our global supply chains.

That honour goes to … The United States of America. Yes, that’s right. The root cause of the three biggest risks in your supply chain is the United States of America. (And not China, although there is a massive risk there as well. And if we wait a few more years, they might get their turn on top.)

How can it be? How can the United States be the single cause of the three biggest risks in your supply chain?

To explain that, we’ll start by repeating them for those of you that have not read The Global Risks Report 2019, 14th Edition, from the World Economic Forum.

According to this report, produced in partnership with Marsh & McLennan Companies and Zurich Insurance Group, the three biggest risks are:

  1. Extreme Weather Events
  2. Failure of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
  3. Natural Disasters

and, as should be obvious, these are all interconnected.

Many (if not the majority of) natural disasters are the result of extreme weather events, and many (if not the majority of) extreme weather events are, whether your choose to believe facts or not, the result of the failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

And why has climate change mitigation and adaptation failed? Because it hasn’t happened. And why hasn’t it happened? Because countries aren’t aggressively working toward it. And why is that not the case? Because only 175 parties, of 197, have ratified The Paris Agreement (the UN Convention on Climate Change) … and one party that initially accepted has withdrawn (and done so in a very public manner). Guess what that country is? You guessed it!

The United States of America has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. If the country that is responsible for approximately 25% of global GDP refuses to support the most important initiative in the world (which still falls short of where we need to be to truly mitigate climate change, but would make a substantial impact on slowing climate change down), especially when it comes to preventing the three biggest risks in your supply chain, then that country is unilaterally responsible for those risks.

So next time a typhoon sinks the freighter carrying all your goods, don’t blame God, Poseidon, or Mother Earth. Blame the United States of America. Or, if you really want to, blame Trump. But don’t blame God or nature because, with the current rate of increase in the number of natural disasters annually, there will soon be a 90% chance that it the natural disaster is 100% the result of climate change brought on by the United States inaction to do anything about it.

Single Multi-Tier Risk Mitigation Strategies Don’t Mitigate Risk

Last year we penned a post on how single tier risk mitigation strategies don’t mitigate risk and that they may, in fact, increase risk. As we indicated in our previous post, the following standard single-tier risk mitigation strategies have the potential to increase risk:

    • Dual Sourcing
      without careful planning, both suppliers could use the same Tier 2 source
    • Alternate Design
      can simply reduce / eliminate the need for one rare raw material in favour of another material that ends up being more rare
  • Financial Risk Monitoring
    for shakey suppliers isn’t enough to catch production shortcuts that a supplier might be taking to cut costs that increase your risk when the product is used or sold
  • Replacement Product Lines
    can share parts and suppliers that actually increase risk from a disruption

We indicated that if you wanted to truly mitigate risk, you have to go multi-tier and work with your supplier to identify the most likely risks in their, and your, supply chain and how to mitigate them.

And this is a great start, but simply using the least risky supplier at each tier doesn’t help you if a random natural or man-made disaster takes out a supplier for a few months (or permanently). There needs to be a dual sourcing strategy, and a well planned one. Using two suppliers in the same region or that use the same raw material source is not dual sourcing. Alternate design that is specific to a small supply base that could be wiped out with a single disaster or single market event is not sound alternate design. Financial risk monitoring using third parties that don’t have deep insight into certain markets, regions, or mining operations is not enough — by the time an issue is detected, it could be too late. And of course, trading one product line with known risks for another with unknown risks is pretty much the opposite of risk mitigation.

That’s why you not only need multi-tier risk mitigation in a single supply chain, but multiple supply chains with multi-tier risk for any critical products or product lines. As per our recent post on how the risk disconnect is still big, Sourcing and Procurement need to place a much bigger focus on risk to ensure negotiated scenarios are actual scenarios to realize the savings and value the organization expects.

The Risk Disconnect is Still Big But …

As pointed out in a post a year ago on how there are at least 12 risk disconnects … but one you should never overlook! we talked about how the disconnect between risk and cost is one of the most critical in our view because:


  1. not only can one identifiable supply chain disruption wipe out all of the savings of a single sourcing event, but also increase costs well beyond that point

  2. only an understanding of the true cost of risk will convince most stakeholders and executives to look beyond cost, reliability, marketing differentiation, or whatever else matters most to them — money talks and (imminent) (potential) loss is the one thing that gets noticed

But that’s pretty hard as most sourcing and procurement solutions not only have no concept of risk, but neither do most platforms. And many of those that do are pretty basic — you can import third party risk scores, define risks to track, and query them occasionally. And that’s about it — and that is clearly not enough given that an organization’s chance of experiencing a significant disruption is now about 90%.

But that might change soon. Not that long ago (in late 2017 to be precise), Spend Matters released the Solution Maps for Strategic Procurement Technologies (Sourcing, Contract Management, Analytics, and Supplier Management) were released — with the Sourcing, Analytics, and Supplier Management maps designed (in entirety) by the doctor and the Contract Management map co-designed by the doctor and the maverick.

Each of these maps had a few elements of risk, but not many. And they were application-based, not platform based. But with the newly revised Solution Maps coming out in June, Risk Management will now be a key component of the common sourcing – supplier management component of the strategic procurement technology maps that measures the assessment, mitigation planning, [risk] model definition, monitoring & risk identification, regulatory compliance monitoring, and supplier risk management capabilities of the platform. Going forward, both Spend Matters and Sourcing Innovation will be putting a greater focus on risk management capabilities to help your organization cope with the turbulent times ahead.

Category Management: Getting it Right is Key to Surviving the Trade Wars Part III

The Trade Wars are here! Tariffs! Counter-Tariffs! Counter-Counter-Tariffs! Counter-Counter-Counter-Tariffs! Even online traders can’t trade that fast. It’s dizzying.

And if you’re planning didn’t start weeks ago, you have a lot of catching up to do. Because if you don’t, your business may not survive. Literally.

So far, we told you it was critical to:

    1. 1. Understanding your Current Costs in Detail
    1. 2. Understand your Tier 2 Supply Chain in Detail
    1. 3. Start By Identifying Alternative Supply Choices
    1. 4. Then Build Alternative Cost Models Around those Alternative Supply Choices

5. Re-Evaluate on Every Tariff Change

But this is not always enough. What if the majority of the rare earth metal comes from China and the cost is insurmountable for your business? You also need to:


6. Start looking at alternative designs that eliminate dependence on a single country.

You can’t be dependent on China, the EU, or any other locale that Trump is targeting. Costs could go through the roof.

Also, you can’t be dependent on certain transportation methods. If diesel costs go through the roof, long haul shipping is going to get considerably more expensive. It may actually be cheaper to do short-haul trucking from Mexico or Brazil if you’re selling in the US because you know that the US may subsidize your industry in other ways (with lower taxes or rebates for buying / shipping at home). Thus, you also need to


7. Start looking aggressively at near-shoring.

SI has been telling you for years that sometimes the best cost county sourcing is home country sourcing, and when that’s not viable, near-shore sourcing is becoming a better option again. Find alternative suppliers closer to home, just in case!

And, you better make sure their supply chains are secure.


8. Weed out near-shore suppliers that are actually getting most of their materials or doing most of their production remotely.

Remember, the entire point of trying to bring production closer to home to ensure affordable supply is to actually bring production back, not just source from a supplier that is just an intermediary that outsources on your behalf. That actually adds more time, risk, and cost to the supply chain.

Is this everything you can do? No, but it’s progress.

Category Management: Getting it Right is Key to Surviving the Trade Wars

The Trade Wars are coming. The Trump Tariffs are coming fast and furious, and the rest of the world is retaliating. So if you aren’t prepared, just about every category under your purview is about to get a LOT more expensive. A LOT more.

And while you’re not likely to thrive, because no one wins a ware, and no one comes out unscathed, you can survive — with care and planning. So what do you need to do?

1) Understand your Current Costs in Detail

Build detailed total cost of ownership cost models for all of your significant (cost/volume) or strategic purchases as if they direct purchases. The costs should be broken down into the components and raw materials that constitute at least 80% of the material cost, and, if possible, energy and labour costs should be broken out of the overheads. Done right, when you add in the “fair” margin, you have the expected unit cost.

On top of this, you add in the transportation costs, surcharges, non-recoverable taxes, import & export charges from source to sink countries, and defect/waste costs.

And this is why we noted you needed talent that could do modelling and use platforms that could handle it is important. But this is just the start. Sometimes the tariffs will be imposed on the product level, but sometimes on the material level. So, that’s why you have to …

2) Understand your Tier 2 Supply Chain in Detail

It’s not just what you’re buying and where you are buying it from, it’s what your suppliers are buying and where they are buying it from. If you’re buying your assemblies from Germany, and 15% tariffs get smacked on assembly imports, that’s a 15% increase. But that’s not the only increase you could be subject too. Maybe Germany is buying the bulk of the raw materials from China. What if Germany decides to smack 15% to 20% tariffs on almost all of the raw materials being sourced from China? Which constitute 60% of your supplier’s costs? Then their costs will go up 9% or more, and guess what’s going to happen to your costs? They’re going to go up another 9%. And you won’t know it until you get the bill!

But if you understand your Tier 2 supply chain you can know when your suppliers are going to get hit with new tariffs, and when they are going to pass on those tariffs to you. You can proactively question them if they are going to switch suppliers, and work with them to find alternative sources of supply without tariffs, or which have a lower overall total cost of acquisition than the sources of supply they are using now.

And this is why we noted you needed talent that had commodity market expertise and negotiation capability as well as a platform that could integrate real-time market data (including tariff changes) and supplier performance management.

But this is just the beginning!

Stay tuned!