When Supply Chains Fail to Supply

While choosing what to accompany my morning coffee with, I came across an article titled “Will the coronavirus pandemic finally kill off global supply chains?” In journalism, Betteridge’s law of headlines states that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered with no.

But there is a sound reasoning for the editor to come up with such a title. Weak links in global supply chains do indeed surface all the time. Over the past year, we had multiple examples exposing their vulnerabilities:

• Chip shortage crippled 169 industries with the tech, home appliances, and car manufacturing;
• Compromised vendor security has several times resulted in leaks of personal data;
• Storms caused months of disruptions to chemical raw materials deliveries;
• Limited oxygen supply left Indian hospitals powerless;
• The badly tangled transportation network led to skyrocketing costs of shipping and major disruption to consumer product deliveries.

Today, supply chains are a sponge that absorbs the world’s inflation anxieties, geopolitical stress, climate implications, and health crises. As a result, their operators face various risks, including financial penalties, legal costs, reputational damage, loss of consumer confidence, loss of business value, and more.

I believe in third-party risk management as one of the keys to avoiding these implications. Alternatively, the ability of supply chain operators to keep vendors at arm’s length.

Knowing precisely who resides within the supply chain, tracking the most recent developments around vendors, and ensuring continuous auditing of different nodes (instead of only during onboarding or in yearly cycles), is now possible thanks to the power of AI and platforms like Owlin.

Our technology is perfectly positioned to uncover the different layers of organizations’ supply chains by shedding light and providing real-time informational coverage on even the most distant emerging market vendors.

Learn more in our dedicated whitepaper

In any case, don’t take our word for granted. 

A testament to Owlin’s capabilities is its recent recognition as one of the best third-party risk management solutions for financial institutions by Chartis Research, the leading provider of research and analysis on the global market for risk technology. In its “GRC Solutions, 2021: Market Update and Vendor Landscape“ publication, Chartis ranks Owlin in the top-right quadrant, where we are joined by leading providers of 3PRM solutions like PwC, IHS Markit, and IBM. And this comes on top of our “The Best Data Analytics Provider“ award from Waters Technology’s 2021 rankings.

So, do you have complete visibility over your supply chain, and are you aware of the potential risks, dangers or disruptions that might occur? Have you ensured transparent 360-degree coverage of Tier 2 and Tier 3 vendors? Or is there work to be done? 

In any case, we would love to hear from you!