Aravo, a provider of what it calls SaaS Supplier Information Management (SIM) software and services, has released a new poll of Fortune 1000 executives on supplier risk. While global corporations are focusing on creating collaborative partnerships with suppliers to make supply chains more efficient, the poll indicates that their top concerns include ongoing supplier financial viability, ensuring regulatory compliance, and managing suppliers in emerging markets.
A significant number of those polled (71.4 percent) expressed that their biggest concern continues to be risk of supplier financial viability. However, despite these concerns, more than half of the financial, procurement and risk executives polled have less than 20 percent of their supplier base under active risk management.
Companies that participated in the Aravo-sponsored poll also are exploring opportunities to maximize budgets by adding more emerging market suppliers. For instance, Aravo found that 31.2 percent of those polled are "heavily penetrated in emerging markets" while another 31.2 percent have "already sourced some suppliers in emerging markets and are looking to expand low-cost country suppliers in 2010." Not surprisingly, the top concern around suppliers in emerging markets is regulatory compliance (41.7 percent), followed by the financial viability of these suppliers (33.3 percent). Only 25 percent of those polled were concerned about product quality.
