The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage

Stories from Nokia, Dell, UPS, Toyota, and other companies show how firms can reduce their vulnerability to high-impact disruptions, from earthquakes to strikes, from SARS to terrorism, and use them for competitive advantage. What happens when fire strikes the manufacturing plant of the sole supplier for the brake pressure valve used in every Toyota? When a hurricane shuts down production at a Unilever plant? When Dell and Apple chip manufacturers in Taiwan take weeks to recover from an earthquake? When the U.S. Pacific ports are shut down during the Christmas rush? When terrorists strike? In The Resilient Enterprise , Yossi Sheffi shows that companies’ fortunes in the face of such business shocks depend more on choices made before the disruption than they do on actions taken in the midst of it - and that resilience benefits firms every day, disaster or no disaster. He shows how companies can build in flexibility throughout their supply chains, based on proven design principles and the right culture - balancing security, redundancy, and short-term profits. And, he shows how investments in resilience and flexibility not only reduce risk but create a competitive advantage in the increasingly volatile marketplace.