The Risking It All Series: One-On-One with The Hackett Group's Chris Sawchuk

Jon Hansen (PI Window on The World)

Okay, so I took some liberties with the famous Mark Twain, and Charles Dudley Warner joke about the weather and made it about risk. However, and different from the weather, procurement professionals can do something about risk, but for whatever reason choose not to. At least this is what one study reported when it was disclosed that while 80 percent of companies do background checks on their employees, just 20 percent screen their suppliers. Joining me today to talk about this disconnect is The Hackett Group's Chris Sawchuk, who's paper Emerging Options for Supply Chain Risk Management attempts to shed some light on what is a growing issue in the rapidly expanding global marketplace. I will be asking Chris these questions; Going back at least a decade, there has been the ready acknowledgment on the part of organizations that while risk exists not enough is being done to mitigate said risks. Why?In your recent paper, you state that the risk-management software tools that are currently available on the market "are still immature" when it comes to an integrated view of risk and that this leaves a lot of room for growth. To what degree does this limitation contribute to the current gap between recognition of risk and addressing it?Within an organization who should take ownership for managing and mitigating risk?