Strategic Risks can be extremely damaging to a business unit and the entire enterprise. They can compromise corporate direction, strategies, R&D and key initiatives. Resources must be rapidly deployed to evaluate and mitigate the risk. This process will divert Human and Financial resources from the core mission and can have a long lasting even catastrophic impact on a business’s competitiveness and its very survival

• Competitive product discovery and development
• Cyber Data Attacks (emails, documents, R&D, business plans)
• Industry/Global Business Environment changes (Regulatory, Financial, Political, Legal)
• Changes in customer spending patterns
• Changes in technology platforms
• Threats from loss of intellectual property and trade secrets
• Negative impact to reputation/loss

Operational Risks have many causes including: a) incidental – which can be an unforeseen consequence of a seemingly un-related event (product shortage due to outbreak of violence or disease in a distant region of the world) b) accidental (loss of plant capacity due to a fire) c) intentional (industrial sabotage).   Regardless of the cause, the results will challenge an organization’s ability to maintain continuity of supply to its customers. Contingencies including building buffer stocks and maintaining back-up capacity are typical mitigations that may be part of pre-planning to counter these.

• Site Disasters (fire, explosion, flood, etc.)
• Disruption in product supply
• Interruptions in global information or data flows
• Product Counterfeiting
• Inefficient use of resources or increased product cost (creating excess inventory)
• Damage or disruption to physical assets (plants/products/property)

Quality risks can, and often do, tie into other risk types such as Financial (recalls), Legal (lawsuits), Regulatory (penalties for audit violations), and more.  When it comes to ‘quality’ issues, the key is to quickly and accurately identify the source and root cause of the quality issue.  Thereafter, documentation and communication of the issues must occur, and ultimately the issue(s) must be addressed through managed and monitored mitigation activities.  Few things are a bigger threat to an organization’s success and longevity than unaddressed quality issues.

• Lack of sufficient scientific or process-specific knowledge and protocols in quality testing
• Lack of key business or organization member involvement in establishing quality standards
• Informal or insufficient quality standard and quality control documentation
• Issues introduced into production via external supply chain members
• Issues introduced into production via internal supply chain members
• Raw or semi-finished component material quality issues
• Product quality issues arising from the production process or equipment
• Customer safety issues
• Product recalls

As the likely origination point of an organization’s supply chain, the risks which are inherent in the manufacturers or suppliers to the organization are the first potential point of failure.  It requires, therefore, diligent and comprehensive evaluation of all supply chain partners to ensure that risks are identified, documented, communicated, and mitigated.  This usually requires a significant level of communication between organizations to analyze and agree upon the issues, and to set measurable and verifiable plans in place to eliminate the identified risks.  Otherwise, the viability of the supply chain is beholden to its weakest link, to the detriment of organizational success.

• Source Status Risks (single or sole source manufacturer or supplier)
• Site Status Risks (mfr/supplier only in a single location)
• Supply Chain Exposure to Geopolitical Shocks
• Supply Chain Exposure to Natural Disasters
• Quality Issues / Failed Audits in Manufacturer/Supplier Operations
• Price Volatility
• Delivery Schedule Inconsistency
• Account Not Important to Manufacturer/Supplier
• Product or Service Not Important to Manufacturer/Supplier
• Few/No Alternative Manufacturers or Suppliers for Same Product or Service
• Legal Issues at Manufacturer/Supplier
• Financial Issues at Manufacturer/Supplier
• Regulatory Issues at Manufacturer/Supplier

Compliance Risks are challenging to manage given the often overlapping Agency jurisdictions, country specific requirements and the ever changing restrictive nature of “guidelines”. Proper documentation is as important as a product’s quality and performance to specification.

• Violation of laws or regulations governing:
  • Product quality/safety issues
  • Controlling changes to a product’s regulated ingredients or components
  • Audits and Regulatory Reviews
  • Environment
  • VAT
  • Import/Export
  • Selling and promotion of products (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)/global Anti-Corruption laws, U.S. government contracts/programs)
  • Data protection of personal data (Global regulations for collection and dissemination)
• Corruption in Local Markets
• Poorly-defined Market Controls in Local Markets

Economic risks can change very frequently and have significant ramifications on the organizational bottom line.  Analytics and ‘if-then’ action plans must be put into place to handle the occurrence of these risks quickly, in order to limit (or avoid) their impact on operational and financial performance.   Upward trending energy costs (usually tied to downward trending supply) can dramatically affect the viability and profitability of products – across all organizational areas, like  manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, and management.  Fast action is key to avoid catastrophic effects caused by economic variable fluctuations.  Awareness and mitigation planning are the crucial first steps.

• Extreme Volatility in Commodity Prices
• Sudden Demand Shocks
• Currency Fluctuations
• Border Delays
• Global Energy Shortages
• Investment/Ownership Restrictions
• Labor Shortage / Labor Unrest

Environmental risks can impact many parts of an organization, or partners from within the Supply Chain, with impacts spreading from the organization’s Supply Chain to its Financial Statements.  In order to reduce the potential impacts of these types of risk, organizations must be aware of their existence with respect to how the acquire materials from manufacturers and suppliers, how to ship and store products, how to deliver and manage service quality, and so on.  If your biggest product requires a material that is made by a manufacturer in a hurricane zone, that would be important to know, right?  What if that manufacturer is the only one that makes that critical material?  What if their only production site is in that hurricane zone?  What if it will take you 6 months to find a suitable alternative replacement manufacturer/material?  You would probably want to know that and get started on mitigating that risk as fast as possible.

• Natural Disasters (Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Drought, etc.)
• Extreme Weather
• Pandemics
• Industrial Accidents

Technological or Competitive risks usually evolve more slowly and with some warning, but can still happen with tremendously negative impact on the organization.  The awareness of these types of risks can factor powerfully into decisions relating to brand management, product pricing, investment and divestment of business units or product lines, etc.  Organizations benefit from proactive planning and decision making, rather than making hasty decisions after the negative effects of technological or competitive risks have already begun to be realized by the organization.

• New or Replacement Technologies
• Introduction of New Competitor Firms
• Ineffective or Non-existent Competition Regulation
• New Governmental Restrictions on Ingredients, Methodologies or Technologies

Organizations operate in a global environment, even if they only have facilities in one country or region – because networks are exposed to threats that may come from any source, at any time, for any reason, and from any location.  As such, organizations are constantly evaluating the strategy, plan comprehensiveness and precision of execution in an attempt to avoid all such data threats.  Beyond the external threats, organizations are always fighting to maintain 100% data accuracy and to provide 100% data availability to critical functions across the entity – from operational details through strategic analysis.

• Cyber-attacks / Data Theft
• Critical System Failures (hardware and software platforms)
• Flaws in Identity Management and Security Platform Controls
• Data Quality Problems
• Data Availability Problems
• Disaster Recovery Plan Flaws
• Data Corruption and System Viruses

• Schedule Risk
• Resource Risk
• Financial Risk
• Budget Risk
• Employee Health & Safety Risk
• Component Risk
• Programmatic Risk
• Infrastructure Risk
• Any others your organization needs