Your next crisis won’t start in your company – it will start in someone else’s

Abstract

A fire breaks out in a factory in Norway. A car plant in England falls silent. That was the chain reaction that forced Jaguar Land Rover to halt production this spring. Not long before, a cyber attack had already shut down its operations for a month, at a reported cost of £260mn. Different causes, same outcome: factories idle, revenues evaporating, suppliers wobbling. If you run a business, this is the uncomfortable truth. Your biggest risk is unlikely to sit neatly within your own walls. It sits with your suppliers. And their suppliers. And the obscure third party no one remembers approving three years ago.