Using the CHAIN Mnemonic to Manage Your Suppliers

Business continuity is all about ensuring that you can keep delivering your key products and services when disruption hits, and one of the areas from which disruption can originate is of course your supply chain. You want to avoid trouble arising initially if possible, but when it does, stop the problem from threatening your business’s critical activities.

Managing the resilience of your suppliers may sound a little difficult to do because they aren’t under your direct control. In one sense that’s absolutely right, in as much as you can only influence and try to gain reassurance in what they do. In other ways, however, you can take control and protect yourself against suppliers failing, such as having a backup, or secondary, supplier that can continue to supply you if the other one fails.

remember.eps Most of the actions that we suggest taking are simple measures you can put in place immediately, to work towards a safer business. All our suggestions aren’t going to suit you and your business, and so select the ones that work for you.

We split the measures into five easy-to-remember aspects, based around the mnemonic ‘CHAIN’:

check.png Contracts and relationships

Hierarchies

Assurance

Initiative

Needs

Considering contracts and relationships

Clearly, ...

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