Is your Supply Chain in danger of breaking?
It is important to understand and assess the Business Continuity Plans of your suppliers and service providers. Some may have supply chains that are quite long. Although the company that supplies your organisation may appear strongly placed to deal with the impacts of Coronavirus the companies that supply them, which may be in other countries, may not be as robust and it may be a long time before they could restart the supply of their goods or services.
Developing this understanding of your reliance suppliers and service providers will require a Business Impact Analysis with risk assessments to be undertaken. Business Impact Analysis is an important component of Business Continuity . It is a proven, effective method to identify critical third parties, how they are used and engaged, and the potential impact from a disruption of the failure. The BIA can include conducting a considered analysis of historical incidents, although in many ways Coronavirus is a game changer, an assessment of the supplier‘s Business Continuity Plans and by engaging in a structured way with the third parties directly.
Each supplier can be assigned a risk rating reflecting the likelihood of their failure to deliver and the impact of a failure. The focus should be on the higher risk suppliers and whether there are mitigations that can reduce the risks. In this you will have more confidence that your organisation can continue to function in these exceptional times.
