Over recent years businesses have responded to growth in demand and price pressure by exploiting global manufacturing and supplier advantages. However the drawback of this globalisation agenda is longer lead times, heavy reliance on logistics and weaker single sourced supplier relationships, but in a growth cycle these were accepted.

In the current global downturn, businesses are being hit by falling demand and unpredictable global supply costs which will expose these and other built in supply chain vulnerabilities. The key questions are, do business leaders understand these vulnerabilities and does their supply chain team have the capability to identify them and present the plans to mitigate them? In most cases the answer is no.

In tough times businesses need to focus absolutely on profit, cash flow and eliminating unpredictable events from a declining demand profile. Supply chains have a critical role in delivering this agenda but face vulnerabilities across demand-side, internal operations and supply-side that can have a serious business impact. This article discusses the vulnerabilities and provides ten actions a business can take to counter them.