Building resilience into the supply chain – an interview with Yossi Sheffi

© Michael Beer

An interesting Q&A with MIT professor Yossi Sheffi, who has recently published a book: The Power of Resilience. He notes that threats to the supply chain are becoming more frequent and more serious – and that often companies are preparing for the wrong things. Businesses tend to focus on threats when the probability is high and the consequences are severe. But in fact, they should also be eyeing those with a serious impact but which are improbable. He also notes that there are new threats now, from cybersecurity to social and environmental responsibilities  – think Bangladesh factory fires or conflict minerals. It ends with an interesting look at Intel’s response to conflict minerals and how it worked to keep them out of its supply chain.