Company boards that fail to exercise high quality oversight over their organisations’ supply chain activities leave the business open to increasing risk, experts have warned.

Participants in a webinar on strengthening supply chain oversight urged boards and directors to recognise the imperative to improve risk management and to ensure activity aligns with corporate strategy.

“Supply chain has become an issue of huge importance,” said Devyani Vaishampayan, an independent board director of Supply Chain Coordination, the management function of NHS Supply Chain.

“Customer expectations are changing, supply chain complexity has increased and now we have geopolitical risk,” she said. “The Russia-Ukraine war has cause huge disruption, China is now being considered differently, and tariffs have now become a topic for everyone.”

Against that backdrop, Akash Patel, a director in the management consulting team at Forvis Mazars, the audit, accountancy and consulting firm, said: “The supply chain has become a top agenda item for many of the boards we work with.”

More forward-looking boards are now critically engaged with the business’s supply chain activity, challenging CEOs and chief supply chain officers on their response to volatility, uncertainty and complexity, he added.

Innovation opportunity

Maxi Glas, chief procurement officer at Savills Property Management, stressed that increased supply chain oversight also represented an opportunity for many organisations. “I work very closely with our suppliers to drive innovation, which has a real impact on how we deliver for customers,” she said. “We incentivise suppliers to drive innovation and to reduce cost; there’s a massive impact on our bottom line.”

Participants in the Board Agenda webinar, produced in association with Forvis Mazars, discussed a range of practical options for boards stepping up oversight, from improved data collection and analysis to more direct and frequent engagement with key suppliers. They also highlighted the imperative to include environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in this work.

Boards now need to devote more time to supply chain oversight, concluded Vaishampayan. “These are big issues and they’re happening right now,” she said. “We need to be getting together to talk about these issues more frequently, rather than relying on the usual pattern of communication.”

The webinar, Strengthening Supply Chain Oversight: Aligning Strategy, Resilience & Risk Management, is now available to watch on demand.

This timely webinar is now available on demand – Access here!