The economic horizon was showing signs of new life and your business-improving Orders were up, but you have concerns that you have stretched the length of your supply chain
The economic horizon was showing signs of new life and your business-improving Orders were up, but you have concerns that you have stretched the length of your supply chain halfway around the world. The news caught your attention with an alert . . . a major earthquake had just hit Japan and the expected tsunami was predicted to cause even greater devastation. Your heart sank thinking about the loss of lives and the human suffering that follows such a major natural disaster. Then it hit you…your most important single-source key supplier was located right in the center of the worst hit area. For many years, procurement organizations have been driven to extract the best pricing from suppliers. Companies have focused relentlessly on reducing costs. Many large corporations require suppliers to produce annual cost reductions or risk being replaced by a competitor somewhere else in the world that is more than willing to produce the required product at the required cost savings.