Business executives are still not attempting to keep ahead of the complex and increasing risks to their global supply chains, a Zurich survey finds.

In its fifth annual Supply Chain Resilience Survey, Zurich polled 519 members of the Business Continuity Institute—including risk and supply-chain managers and business continuity, security and emergency-planning professionals—about how they're meeting the challenge of running efficient global business operations.

The survey finds that three-quarters of business specialists do not have a clear understanding of their organization's supply-chain disruption experiences, and only a quarter are coordinating and reporting across their enterprise to gain said knowledge. Moreover, 50% say half or more of their suppliers do not have a business-continuity plan in place.

This level of unpreparedness has remained unchanged from 2012.

While supply-chain disruptions are increasing—over the past four years, 75% of respondents annually experienced at least one incident—they also are occurring further inside the supply chain. Forty-two percent of business interruptions originated below the tier-one supplier (supplying parts to the manufacturer of the final product) in 2013.

Top causes of disruption occurred from unplanned IT outages (55%), adverse weather (40%) and service failure by outsourced providers (37%).

However, non-physical causes of interruption (that don't deter the immediate supply of a product or service but require crisis response) made an impactful appearance: high-profile media reporting of the danger of cyber attacks rose from 18th place in 2012 to 5th place in 2013, and the non-availability of loss of talent increased from 10th place to 6th.

Special Reports /

Businesses Unprepared for Supply Chain Risks

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