Why isn't anyone worried about supply chain risk?

Supply chain risk remains one of the most significant threats to businesses in many industries, but the majority of executives are still not developing strategies to mitigate the problem, according to a report released Friday by UPS Capital and the Global Supply Chain Insitute.

Instead, most companies consider their corporate insurance policies their first and primary line of defense.

In fact, of the 150 firms that were surveyed as part of the study, 90% said they “did not formally quantify supply chain risk when outsourcing production,” and a full 0% said they have reached out to experts to help assess their risk exposure in this area.

Zero!

In the eyes of many executives, apparently, mitigating supply chain risk just is not worth the time or investment.

[Related: Freight increasingly at risk for cyber crime]

“We were surprised by some of the findings regarding the lack of mitigation strategies,” said Dr. Paul Dittmann, ‎executive director of the Global Supply Chain Institute and the study's author. “The supply chain is one area of a company where executives are faced with balancing operational efficiencies, all without actually having direct control over many of the moving parts, thus making risk mitigation strategies almost essential to operations. Any business that does not have some basic form of risk mitigation plans in place is simply gambling with its existence.”

I suspect these corporations' insurance carriers have some different opinions on this issue.