Supply Chain Resilience – UK & Ireland in focus

In the face of the current Coronavirus pandemic that has shocked the world over recent months and weeks, governments at local, regional and national levels are being forced to make some unprecedented decisions to protect the health and well-being of society, whilst simultaneously trying to avert a local/global economic meltdown.

One essential element linked to these priorities is the role that the supply chain will play in the coming days, weeks and months.

Not all supply chains will have the ability to respond as effectively as others, this is due to several factors (discussed below) which determine that some supply chains are more resilient than others.

FM Global, a risk management and insurance company recently published their latest Global Resilience Index. This index measures exactly how resilient different countries throughout the world are to “supply chain disruption”.

Their data-driven tool and repository ranks the business resilience of 130 countries. It is designed to help executives evaluate and manage supply chain risk. Twelve key drivers of supply chain risk are grouped into three main categories: economic, risk quality and supply chain factors (see table below). These combine to form the composite index. Scores are bound on a scale of 0 to 100 with 0 representing the lowest resilience and 100 being the maximum resilience.

In the 2019 FM Global resilience report found that the United Kingdom´s supply chain factor was ranked the 3rd most resilient supply chain globally out of the 130 countries included within the index.

Ireland rank at number 22 with Singapore and Hong Kong respectively have the most resilient supply chains globally with Haiti ranking at number 130.

Overall Resilience Performance:

The report also found that from an economic standpoint Ireland is the 5^th most resilient country and the United Kingdom 23^rd.

Overall, taking all factors into consideration both the UK and Ireland performed extremely well in FM´s Global Resilience Index, with the United Kingdom ranking at number 10 globally and Ireland at number 16.

The challenges that we face today are testing the global supply chain in ways that we have never witnessed before and it will be very interesting to see how these supply infrastructures are able to adapt quickly to the changing global demands that are being placed on them by governments, businesses and general society as a whole over the coming months. The 2020 report may have a considerably different look to the 2019 version.

You can find out more information about the FM Global Resilience Index by clicking here.