Ensuring Supply Chain Agility & Risk Readiness

Supply chain agility and risk readiness are essential for businesses to remain competitive in today’s interconnected, digital world. With the COVID-19 pandemic and other supply chain disruptions, it has become more important than ever for businesses to have appropriate security defenses and response mechanisms in place to ensure that their supply chain is prepared for any potential risks.

The manufacturing industry is particularly at risk. According to IBM’s Security X-Force Threat Report, “manufacturing is the world’s most attacked industry, outpacing finance and insurance.” Is your manufacturing business prepared? In this blog post, we will discuss several key steps your business can take to ensure you stay ahead of any risks that may come your way. 

Conduct Risk Assessments

Regularly assessing potential risks that could impact your supply chain and developing a plan of action to mitigate or prevent those risks is critical to ensuring that your supply chain is operating efficiently. Consider preparing for everything from natural disasters and cyberattacks to supplier failures and operator errors. By identifying these risks and developing a plan of action, your business can minimize any potential supply chain impact.

Use Technology to Monitor Your Supply Chain

Technology can help provide a clear picture of where your products are at any given time and identify potential issues before they become a problem. Cybersecurity technology is one of the best ways to monitor risks, especially as cyberattacks continue to evolve. In fact, the NIST Cybersecurity framework released a Manufacturing Profile to recommend best practices around data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. We recommend following this framework as a guide, while customizing it to fit your unique business needs.

Develop a Disaster Recovery Plan

Having a disaster recovery plan in place is essential in today’s increasingly high risk environment. In the event of a disaster, having a robust plan in place can minimize the impact on your supply chain and the downtime your business may experience. Consider this: Research from the Economist “found disruptions have incurred substantial financial costs (averaging 6-10% of annual revenues), as well as reputational costs. — in terms of customer complaints and damage to brand reputation — as companies have struggled to maintain supplies of their goods.” Considering disruptions to your supply chain can damage your business far beyond revenue, a disaster recovery plan is a must-have. In our experience, plans should follow the NIST 800-171 standards, your regulatory requirements, and your unique RTO and RPO objectives.

Stay Flexible and Adaptable

Adapting to changing conditions and being able to quickly pivot to new suppliers or new products if necessary is critical to ensuring that your supply chain is agile. A flexible supply chain brings your business many benefits, such as being able to scale up to meet your customer needs, lessening your liability, and saving costs whenever possible. Being proactive rather than reactive will ensure your supply chain management stays efficient and flexible.

Support Your Supply Chain With AllConnected

Ensuring supply chain agility and risk readiness is essential for all businesses to remain competitive and secure. AllConnected can help develop a robust cybersecurity plan for your manufacturing or engineering business. We can assist with all critical cybersecurity components for your business — from regulatory compliance to secure network infrastructure. Our expert architects, combined with our tested recovery plans and trusted partner network, will enable your business to prepare for unforeseen circumstances and better manage risks. Connect with us today!