Quarterly Council Meeting Sets Stage for SCRM Thought Leadership and Council Expansion

By Joe McMorrow, Cisco Systems, Inc.

On April 18^th, 2009, the Supply Chain Risk Leadership Council held its eighth quarterly on the Cisco Systems campus in San Jose, California.  One of the first orders of business was to welcome new members: Celestica, Coca-Cola, Expeditors, FoxConn, Genentech, GE, Johnson & Johnson, LMI,and Rand.

The event opened with a keynote address by Angel Mendez, SVP, and Customer Value Chain Management, Cisco, entitled “Supply Chain Risk Management: From Dogma to Leadership,” in which he outlined Cisco’s strategic approach to risk management, shared best practices and discussed the importance of the development of an international standards-based approach to ERM.

“Supply Chain Risk is increasingly more popular with board rooms…particularly with affects from the economy and affects of globalization,” Mendez told participants.

Following Angel’s presentation, John O’Connor, Director, Risk Management, Cisco, provided an overview of the Council and its key objectives:

• To expand overall awareness of the importance of SCRM and increase Council membership
• To draw on Council members to contribute valuable insight and best practices toward the creation of an ISO SCRM standard
• To build influence with those agencies that affect the supply chain, as well as develop a sense and respond capability. 

John also shared his vision for the Council’s evolution and addressed the council structure, outlining the various levels of participation (core council members, track leads, workgroup leaders, and community members) and encouraged attendees who had not yet done so to join the Council effort.

“There is an opportunity for us (SCRLC) to create better awareness of the importance for and the science and the practice of Supply Chain Risk Management,” O’Connor explained.

With presentations concluded, attendees discussed the scope and deliverables of the council and agreed to develop Tracks within the SCRLC to further develop best practices and standards for Supply Chain Risk Management. That discussion resulted in the creation of seven distinct Tracks with assigned Track Leads and attendees volunteering to participate as workgroup members.

• Supply Chain Risk Quantification and Measurement
• Business Continuity Planning and Preparedness
• Incident Detection and Crisis Management
• Manufacturing, Transportation and Logistics Resiliency
• Product and Materials Resiliency
• Supply Chain Security
• Regulatory

 Since the April meeting, the Track workgroups have developed charter documents, and are in the process of documenting best practices and recommendations for SCRM standards.  Each of the Tracks will have an opportunity to present their progress at the next Council meeting on August 25-26, 2009, in Fairfield, CT at the headquarters of SCRLC member company GE.