The coronavirus and China. The logistics threat is closer than you think.

Dun and Bradstreet looked into the coronavirus and found, “At least 51,000 (163 Fortune 1000) companies around the world have one or more direct or Tier 1 suppliers in the impacted region, and at least five million companies (938 Fortune 1000) around the world have one or more Tier 2 suppliers in the impacted region.”

Have you activated your contingency plan to shift to sources away from the affected region?  Contingency plans matter, especially for internationally sourced components.

Do you have a risk adjusted process to manage threats across your portfolio that addresses events like the corona virus?  Oversight matters.

Do have any way of assessing the impact of risk propagating through lower level of your distribution network?  Tier 2 matters.

Have you identified alternative sources of supply, especially for you internationally source components?  Order from a location in the United States doesn’t mean your product is coming from the United States.

In the aftermath of the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, these are some issues every logistics practitioner in the United States should be considering.  There are more.  Get to work.