“Brexit (is) more disruptive to supply chains than natural disasters and cyberattacks combined for UK businesses”.
This is not our view, but was the finding of a survey of UK business decision makers published, in June, by a leading authority on Business Continuity.
Further investigation revealed that the survey was conducted over 500 companies, all larger than an SME (>250 employees). We regard this as a sufficiently large sample to produce meaningful results. Half of these decision makers felt that Brexit uncertainty “had negatively impacted their supply chain in the last five years”. Cyberattacks (22%) and natural disasters (19%) were other major factors identified.
At first glance, this does not make for good reading, particularly when you consider the impact of Storm Desmond (December 2015) on the transport infrastructure with closures of the West Coast Mainline and the A591. There was also severe impact on businesses (an estimated 16% of Cumbrian businesses were affected), people and premises, despite their being better prepared after previous natural disasters.
Also, although seemingly a far lesser concern than Brexit, cyberattacks are on the increase with a major logistics company suffering an estimated $300 million loss of revenue following the NotPetya attack in 2017. Data from 2018 estimated the global cost of cybercrime to be in excess of $600 billion.
So, it would appear that Brexit must be a major concern, but to whom does it matter and what can be done? For the car industry and other “Just in Time” production industries that have rigorous delivery and production schedules, a no-deal Brexit will inevitably lead to long delays at channel ports. This will impact both rail and ferry services; something that has been almost an annual occurrence during my life time, but with a no deal Brexit, will inevitably be on a larger scale for a protracted period.
Other than stock-piling parts and components and, where practicable, using air freight services, there would appear to be few alternatives for imported goods. The potential no deal Brexit will similarly affect exporters of goods, vehicles, parts and components.
It is not clear how many of the 500 decision-makers are importers or exporters. However, Brexit, Cyber and natural disasters aside, there are other aspects of a Supply Chain that all Business Owners, including SMEs and Academy Trusts (a growing presence in the Education sector) should consider.
Do you know precisely which companies (there may be sub-contractors on which the prime contractor heavily relies) are in your supply chain? Do these companies have tested Business Continuity Plans? Are these companies taking adequate measures to minimise the impact of a Cyber Attack? Do these companies, or other businesses on which they rely, import goods or products? These same goods or products that will eventually form (part of) a service or product provided to your organisation? Are companies, particularly those in areas prone to flooding and extreme weather, taking measures to manage future climate change?
Hopefully, the conclusion to Brexit will allay the fears of the 50% of decision makers. Until the UK’s exit, which of supply chain management components mentioned above can be addressed to maintain the integrity of the supply chain? Continuity West’s MIMS (Multi-user Incident Management System) has the ability to store details of contacts and suppliers and, where identified, alternative suppliers along with contracts and agreements. In addition, our consultants can create, with its clients, bespoke plans to manage potential failures in a supply chain as part of the overall Contingency Planning strategy.
MIMS also has the ability to communicate via email and SMS, separate from your own systems, should your business experience a cyberattack or other outage.
The views expressed above are solely those of the author Chris Simms, Director at Continuity West. If you would like to know more about MIMS or other services that we provide, please contact us on 01225 220052 or visit our website www.continuitywest.co.uk