In 2012, 23% of survey participants were “very concerned” and a further 44% “somewhat concerned” about natural disasters. In 2013, these figures have fallen to 13% and 39% respectively. Concerns about supply shortages – the top concern across all sectors last year – and disruptive incidents such as fires and strikes have also dropped by several percentage points. Similarly, as global economic conditions have improved relative to 2010-11, worries about key suppliers and customers going out of business have reduced (although a majority of practitioners remain concerned about all of these issues). The two most troublesome risks for 2013-14 are commodity price volatility and safety/quality incidents.
The top 10 risk mitigation strategies are as follows:
The results for the level to which companies have good visibility of potential risks for selected sectors are as follows:
Methods used to obtain visibility of potential sub-tier risks for top 5 sectors are as follows:
Source: Lee, H., O'Marah, K., Geraint, J., Blake, B. 2013. The Chief Supply Chain Officer Report 2013: Pulse of the Profession, SCM World, September 2013.