Emergency Management Benchmarking Study: Lessons for Increasing Supply Chain Resilience

The challenge to manage a business today is bigger than ever, because we cannot think only about our organization, but the intricate network of organizations that form our supply chain. Some organizations cope far better than others with both the prospect and the manifestation of unquantifiable risk -- they share a critical trait: resilience. This study researches emergency management organizations which are required to maintain a state of readiness for immediate reaction, and evaluates best practices in preparedness, detection, response and recovery. Extracting insights from multiple interviews, this research verified that most of the current emergency management best practices do indeed increase resilience without increasing redundancy; consequently, performance is improved in a cost-effectively way. Applications to supply chain management are made to recommended enhancements to overall resilience.