I was just reading this article about supply chain vulnerability over at Supply and Demand-Chain Executive. The author, Dr. Jeff Karrenbauer, makes the point that vulnerability to the supply chain has taken on a new importance or visibility recently. He says, "In the last five years, supply chain vulnerability has risen from an obscure topic, scarcely worthy of serious discussion, to a vital concern of senior executives responsible for preserving corporate continuity."
Do you agree with that? I do agree that there has been more emphasis on it in the last five years due to the political turmoil in the world and our ever-increasing globalization of the supply chain (usually touted as a positive development in other contexts). However, disaster recovery ability and corresponding contract clauses have always been a concern in the RFP processes and vendor evaluations as long as I have been in Purchasing.
Maybe disaster recovery was always thought to be more about records and duplication than about recovering/restarting business processes and actual goods, which is where the emphasis lies in that article.
Regardless of the history of it, the article is a timely call to action and worthy of your time and attention.
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