Gartner Asks: How Can We Secure a Supply Chain Network?

Global supply chain resilience is vital to mitigate risks from disruptions such as economic instability, geopolitical tensions and climate-related events.

To effectively handle global disruptions, organisations must embrace digital transformation, predictive analytics and supplier diversification to maintain agility and continuity. 

Exploring these themes in more detail, Gartner has released its ‘12 Keys to Securing the Supply Chain Network’ research to help businesses secure long-term success in an increasingly unpredictable global supply chain landscape. 

With only 21% of supply chain leaders possessing a highly resilient supply chain network, this report is vital for highlighting to organisations how they can focus on resilience through collaboration, technology and sustainability.  

Ronak Gohel, Director Analyst of Supply Chain Research at Gartner, states: "As the supply chain landscape continues to evolve, it has become increasingly important for supply chain leaders to focus on building resilience or redundancy. They need to assess the trade-offs of various scenarios to make well-informed decisions on enhancing resilience.

"The initial step in this process is to understand the organisation's risk appetite, which can vary and influence different decisions. These decisions might involve tactical choices, like adding an inventory buffer, or transformative changes, such as diversifying the manufacturing network."

Why does supply chain resilience matter?

Supply chain resilience is vital to reduce disruptions from pandemics, climate-related events and geopolitical conflicts. 

By crafting a resilient supply chain, organisations can respond effectively to rapid demand shifts, enhance flexibility and maintain business continuity by minimising dependency on single suppliers. 

Businesses can focus on sustainable and ethical sourcing practices and utilise data analytics and AI-driven forecasting to enhance competitiveness and secure long-term supply stability. 

What factors determine resilience needs?

By determining the factors that impact their resilience needs, businesses can strengthen their supply chains and prepare for their individual risks, such as raw material shortages, geopolitical instability and climate change. 

Recognising these resilience factors will help organisations to reduce operational and financial risks, while also improving long-term stability. 

Gartner points to six factors that impact the level of resilience needed in manufacturing networks:

• Risk appetite

Organisations can understand variables like profit margin by partnering with ERM teams. Regulatory affairs functions can also provide regulatory and compliance guidance.

• Situation of critical partners

Gartner stresses that businesses should evaluate suppliers and focus on those that are influential in the continuity of their business. 

• What we are protecting

Organisations must decide on what they want to avoid, such as increased tariffs, costs or natural disaster exposure. 

• Trade-off decisions

The point at which supply chain leaders can decide which resilience measures to reject or support after compiling information.

• Funding decisions

C-suite leaders decide whether resilience measure costs should be passed to customers, shared with upstream suppliers or absorbed by the organisation. 

• National or trading bloc incentives 

Governments that impose penalties of offer incentives to encourage local manufacturing help to reshape global supply chains.

The future of supply chain resilience

Future supply chain resilience will be determined by the relationship between sustainability, technology and decentralisation, says Gartner

Organisations should consider how they effectively anticipate risks and optimise operations by utilising blockchain for transparency, AI-driven analytics and IoT-enabled monitoring. 

With sustainability becoming a key priority for both consumers and stakeholders, businesses can embrace ethical sourcing, circular economy principles and carbon-neutral logistics to minimise their risk. 

Gartner’s recent research showcases the importance of organisations focusing on resilience to manage costs and risks effectively while crafting diverse and flexible supply networks. 

Explore the latest edition of Supply Chain Digital Magazine and be part of the conversation at our global conference series, Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE.

Discover all our upcoming events and secure your tickets today. 

Supply Chain Digital is a BizClik brand. ​​​​​​​