A Financial Times report detailing BMW's choice to increase recruitment in its risk monitoring department effectively highlights the crucial impact a failure in a supply chain can have on other companies.
The increased recruitment came after the luxury car manufacturer decided to provide aid to Edscha, a German manufacturer of car components facing bankruptcy.
Edscha had announced it was facing difficulty ahead of BMW's release of its new Z4, meaning BMW had a vested interest in seeing it succeed.
A failure of any supplier in the supply chain during the recession could lead to catastrophic results for many companies further down the chain, and so it may fall on clients to support some suppliers throughout 2009, the report suggests.
Companies hoping to bolster their supply chain could contract a third-party supply chain management company, which could find ways to secure secondary suppliers in order to prevent a failure from having too strong an impact.
Supply chain management companies could also help businesses increase the efficiency of a supply chain, in order to cut costs and therefore free up cash while it is currently needed the most.
The Financial Times article also suggests that it is important to find not just several suppliers but also ones which do not draw on the same resources; an investigation which a third-party supply chain management company may have to time to carry out, whereas in-house management may not.
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