New book examines risk management

There's plenty to be said for today's interconnected global economy, but there's a downside as well. That is, an unexpected event in one corner of the globe can ripple through the world's supply chain and affect partners around the planet.

The best business leaders know how to manage uncertainty and ride out these inevitable storms, says Yossi Sheffi, director of the Center for Transportation and Logistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and author of The Resilient Enterprise.

That task has never been harder than in our interconnected global economy, Sheffi argues in his latest book, The Power of Resilience: How the Best Companies Manage the Unexpected. Using case studies featuring companies that have survived disruptions, Sheffi shows that modern vulnerabilities call for innovative processes and for embedding corporate resilience and risk management in the very fabric of the corporation. As an example, he cites the case of Intel—a company whose preparedness and risk management program allowed it to weather the 2011 Japanese tsunami.

To emerge from these challenges, companies must focus on corporate responsibility, cybersecurity, long-term disruptions, business continuity planning, emergency operations centers, detection, and systemic disruptions, Sheffi says.