Business Continuity For Dummies

Chapter 6

Building Resilience in Your Supply Chain

In This Chapter

Understanding supply chains

Getting reassurance quickly and easily

Avoiding supply-chain problems

Your business doesn’t work in isolation. Like all firms, you’re part of a chain of suppliers, with businesses that rely on you and others on which you depend. For the purposes of this chapter, we define a supply chain as:

a chain of suppliers that cuts across borders, drawing firms and contractors into the process of making and delivering a single product or service.

So, for every product and service that you produce, you more than likely rely on others: for example, to supply you with components so that you can assemble your product. Your business then continues this chain of supply by delivering a completed product, boxed, on a pallet, to your customers.

This definition doesn’t necessarily mean that your supply chain has to cut across national borders, but even if you’re ordering items from the other side of town, the principle remains the same. Your supply chain is essentially about pulling together all the things you need from their various locations to produce and then deliver your end product or service.

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