The resilience of global supply chains has been tested time after time, notably in recent years during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Suez Canal blockage in 2021, and the continued and increasingly volatile geo-political climate.

The key learnings we can take away from these challenges are that disruption is inevitable, and whilst the cause of supply chain failure may change, businesses need to take the necessary steps to minimise the risks of disruption. And, regardless of the scale of the incident, having visibility across an entire supply chain is vital to keeping it consistently moving so as not to contribute to the disruption to partners, suppliers or end customers.

Weak visibility hampers decision-making

Inventory is the lifeblood of the supply chain sector, and if businesses want to deliver goods on time, they need to be able to understand, track, and control their inventory as efficiently as possible. In order to properly do this, companies need real-time visibility across every aspect of their supply chains.

Without real-time visibility, the ability to detect and rapidly respond to any disruption may be hampered.  Where companies are able to react quickly to any difficulty that may arise, the impact of this disruption can be mitigated or negated. Responses to disruption could include, redirecting goods, using alternate transport, or using different sources of supply. Furthermore, the accuracy of these vital decisions is only as good as the data upon which they are based, and if companies don’t have access to real-time data, then their ability to make quick and accurate decisions will be impaired.

However, real-time end-to-end visibility over inventory is not so easily achieved. Global supply chains today are extensive, and inventory needs to be tracked and managed across multiple locations, including manufacturing, warehousing, freight forwarding, distribution, concessions, and retail locations. This can be challenging, mainly because different aspects of these business systems are often owned and operated by several companies, running different systems, and having different IT policies and security postures.

Achieving real-time visibility

To achieve real-time visibility, many companies are now using advanced analytics. This is offering companies the ability to make more accurate forecasts about the supply chain. This is done by using algorithms fed by current and historical data, with external feeds like weather conditions and local traffic updates. Such forecasting can only be achieved through secure, reliable network connections between facilities and the cloud, with a low-latency service that guarantees twenty-four-seven rapid access to vital data.

This advanced technology can be a great tool for maintaining total transparency, which ensures the smooth running of supply chains, allowing producers, manufacturers, distributors, logistics businesses and retailers to deliver for their customers, resulting in satisfaction for everyone involved.

To achieve full supply chain visibility in today’s extensive and hyperconnected global supply chains, each company in the chain must share data across the whole supply chain, helping achieve much-needed transparency at each stage in the logistics process.

The increasing cyber-attack surface

As much as the hyper-connectedness of modern supply chain networks improves visibility and, in turn, the ability to optimise processes, the increased integration has expanded the total cyberattack surface. For example, if one company falls victim to a cyberattack, it not only puts at risk the system data of other companies in the supply chain application which is held by that company, but introduces the threat of malicious actors leveraging the interconnectedness of the supply chain system to infiltrate deeper into other companies networks.

A successful attack on the supply chain could lead to financial penalties and a loss in revenue, but also hit business reputation and result in a loss in productivity. If organisations want to mitigate this challenge, they need to make sure that they implement tough cybersecurity measures, as well as introduce compliance policies and processes to ensure their suppliers within the chain are also maintaining a high standard of protection.

The UK Government has in the past shared information on how businesses can achieve greater cybersecurity compliance, and make sure they are in complete control of their supply chains. This involves principles like proper risk management, establishing control and checking arrangements with suppliers. Examples of this could be anything from making Cyber Essentials Plus a full requirement, writing the “right to audit” into supplier contracts, or implementing zero trust principles to ensure malicious actors have a harder time jumping between those companies within a supply chain system, while making sure the common security posture is evolving with security threats as the supply itself chain evolves.

Organisations that don’t have a CISO or a strategic security policy need to take extra steps to ensure everyone involved understands the risks, what partners require from one another, and the methods they can employ to limit exposure across the entire supply chain. This clarity could be achieved through working collaboratively to implement a full supply chain security audit, and implementing regular vulnerability assessments or penetration tests with agreed remediation actions to ensure everyone is on the same page and threats can be quickly identified and addressed in a timely manner.

Understanding the risks of increased interconnection

Our world is characterised by disruption, it is how a business responds to disruption that may well determine how its customers and peers view it in the long term, it should come as no real surprise that resilient global supply chains built on real-time visibility have the best chance of prospering. When companies don’t achieve a strong level of visibility, the impact is clear and obvious, often resulting in a breakdown in relations between suppliers and partners, customer satisfaction, and additional costs due to delays, and ultimately a loss of business as goods may need to be diverted through less time-efficient routes or different logistics channels.

The bottom line is that while companies need to work closely and share real-time data with their suppliers to optimise supply chains, they simply cannot look past the risks that will undoubtedly arise. Sharing data across the supply chain is critical to achieving the required visibility to foster long-term resiliency, but only if companies manage the risks introduced by the increased attack surface and take steps to truly understand how they can be identified and properly managed.