Phil Fersht’s Horses for Sources business process outsourcing blog recently posted soon to be released highlights of IBM’s recent survey involving the current perceptions of 1100 CEO’s. These include the conclusion that the vast majority of CEO’s recognize the need for a climate of business change, and are prepared more than ever to be bold and adopt measures that can drive rapid change. In his post, Phil points out five differences from previous survey highlights, with somewhat of an outsourcing bias.For this author, the important take-away from this latest survey relates to the continuing cross-industry movement toward global supply chain adoption and its associated implications. The conclusion that there is a scarcity of talent to manage offshore resources and the need for more global intelligence to foster more-timely decision-making is becoming more obvious with each passing day. I cannot help but ponder the fact that this environment in which CEO’s must deliver quick business results, driven mostly by the short-term focused Wall Street community, may well be having its own impact on the overall management of supply chain risk.
Quantifying and strategizing value-chain risk is an area that I trust will be reflected in CEO actions today, and far into the future. In his additional later comments, Phil points out that there are three groups, the CIO, CFO, and Chief Supply Chain Officer, that the CEO needs to bring together to take advantage of globalization. In other words, risk strategy must be transferred to consistent execution. I could not agree more. I would also hasten to add that having a cross-functional risk identification and mitigation team in place should be one of the top items on the CEO to-do list.
Bob Ferrari
