Risk Management Frameworks Strengthening Supply Chain Resilience and Ensuring Business Continuity During Global Crises

Global supply chains have become increasingly complex, interconnected, and susceptible to disruptions arising from pandemics, geopolitical tensions, natural disasters, cyberattacks, and other systemic crises. These disruptions not only threaten operational continuity but also impact financial stability, market reputation, and stakeholder trust. Strengthening supply chain resilience and ensuring business continuity therefore require comprehensive, adaptive, and proactive risk management frameworks that can anticipate, mitigate, and recover from such shocks. This examines the conceptual and operational foundations of risk management frameworks designed to enhance supply chain resilience. It highlights the importance of strategic risk identification, vulnerability mapping, and scenario-based stress testing to detect potential points of failure across global supply networks. Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) principles, including those embedded in COSO ERM and ISO 31000, provide a structured approach for integrating supply chain risks into broader organizational governance, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives, risk appetite, and compliance requirements. The role of mitigation strategies is emphasized, encompassing supplier diversification, redundancy in logistics, inventory buffering, cybersecurity measures for digital platforms, and financial safeguards such as insurance and contractual protections. Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and crisis management protocols are critical to maintaining operations during disruptions, enabling rapid re-routing, resource reallocation, and adaptive process modifications. Technological enablers—including predictive analytics, AI, IoT, blockchain, and cloud-based platforms—further enhance visibility, decision-making, and adaptive capacity in real time. Governance, regulatory compliance, and ethical considerations form an overarching layer, ensuring that resilience strategies align with international standards (e.g., ISO 22301, ISO 28000) and support sustainable, transparent operations. This underscores that integrated frameworks combining strategic risk management, operational safeguards, technological enablement, and governance mechanisms can transform supply chains into adaptive, resilient systems capable of withstanding global crises. Robust risk management frameworks are essential not only for operational continuity but also for maintaining competitive advantage, stakeholder trust, and sustainable growth. They enable supply chains to anticipate emerging threats, adapt to dynamic conditions, and recover swiftly, positioning organizations for resilience in an increasingly uncertain global environment.