Global Supply Chain Risk Events Increased 36% in 2018 According to Resilinc’s Annual EventWatch

Resilinc’s newly released 2018 EventWatch Report reveals that not only have global risks increased overall, but volatile and uncertain geopolitical conflicts—including the U.S.-China trade conflicts and Brexit—pose some of the most potentially costly and disruptive supply chain impacts. This is the ninth year Resilinc has conducted the research, and some of the findings came as a surprise.“Supply chain, sourcing, and procurement professionals are on the front lines of managing global trade risks for their companies,” said Bindiya Vakil, Resilinc CEO. “2018 challenged them in new ways, and 2019 is shaping up to present continued uncertainty as long-standing trade relationships are reconfigured.“Along with Brexit and the U.S.-China trade conflicts, organizations have to anticipate how other major changes in trade relationships could affect their procurement strategies—from NAFTA 2.0 to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which already spans a trading bloc of about 500 million people and may soon expand to include more countries,” said Vakil. “There’s also the new EU-Japan trade agreement to evaluate and the UK’s bilateral negotiations with the U.S., Japan and other countries. As our team has been recommending for years, a key strategy to manage such highly fluid situations is scenario planning and preparation.