Storm Desmond dropped 341mm (or 13 inches) of rain on parts of north west England in just 24 hours over the weekend, overwhelming recently completed defences and flooding thousands of homes and businesses, and making roads and rail lines impassable.
In fact, adverse weather is the third most common cause of supply chain disruption, according to The Supply Chain Resilience Report published last month by the Business Continuity Institute and supported by Zurich Insurance Group.
It came after unplanned IT and telecommunications outage (64 per cent), and cyber attack and data breach (54 per cent).
The report also looked at the consequences of business disruption. The top five are loss of productivity (58 per cent), customer complaints (40 per cent), increased cost of working (39 per cent), loss of revenue (38 per cent) and impaired service outcomes (36 per cent).
Nevertheless, only 68 per cent of respondents said they had business continuity arrangements in place to deal with supply chain disruptions.
And while the report shows that top management commitment to supply chain resilience is rising, it was still highlighted by only 33 per cent of respondents (29 per cent last year).
So how would your business have coped with Storm Desmond? Such events are becoming more common, making it ever more important to have an effective continuity plan in place.
