In the webinar, Building Supply Chain Resilience in an Era of Uncertainty, Tony Pelli, Global Practice Director, and David Fairnie, Senior Principal Consultant, from BSI's Supply Chain Security & Resilience practice, shared their perspectives on why the consequences of disruption can reverberate for 30, 60, 90 days or more, and what it means to build resilience that's always on.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is already disrupting oil flows, trade routes, and regional stability. But the real damage to supply chains takes longer to show up, and hits harder when it does. The compounding crises of the past several years have made it clear that resilience can't be a crisis response. Is your organization built to keep operating when disruption becomes the norm?
A cascade effect, not a crisis
The compounding effects of today's disruptions will be felt for months, reaching further into supply networks than most organizations expect. The old mental model of one disruption, a clear start and end, and a defined recovery window no longer holds.
"What started regionally is now clearly systemic and interconnected," said David Fairnie, Senior Principal Consultant, Supply Chain Security. "The key issue is not really severity. It's duration and uncertainty that we're managing here."
Take transportation. Ships stranded in the Persian Gulf delay east-west trade routes. Rerouting through Sri Lanka or east Africa adds weeks to transit times, accelerates vessel wear, and (with Middle East airports disrupted) makes it harder to fly in the parts and engineers needed for repairs. Airfreight capacity shrinks as airlines cut routes made uneconomical by fuel costs. One disruption generates three or four distinct waves of impact.
"Every single one of these disruptions has a first, second, and third order impact," Tony Pelli, Global Practice Director, Supply Chain Security & Resilience noted. "Your nice, clean supply chain map might not be so clean in 30 or 60 days."
The 90-day problem
Semiconductor supplies tighten. Automotive and consumer electronics face delays. Data center build-outs absorb what's left, pushing costs higher for everyone downstream. These are the downstream consequences of a single disrupted input: helium.
Helium gas is essential to semiconductor manufacturing, and roughly a third of global supply flows through the Middle East. Most organizations maintain around a two-month buffer stock to guard against short-term interruptions. Under normal conditions, this is enough to keep production moving.
But if that helium stock depletes and the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, lead times mean a 90-day gap before supply resumes. The downstream consequences add up fast.
Most organizations won't see it coming because of a lack of visibility past tier 1 suppliers.
The fragility of tier 2 and tier 3 networks is noticed only when a crisis forces the issue, by which point options are limited. That's where intelligence comes in. It contextualizes geopolitical signals into actionable insight about where your supply network is exposed, and when.
Supplier fragility is a hidden risk
"If your supplier is unstable, then you are going to be unstable," says David Fairnie. Keeping critical suppliers operational demands cross-functional, collaborative engagement. Work directly with suppliers to understand their exposure, costs, and ability to continue operating. Can they survive during a major event? That distinction is invaluable when energy costs are surging and force majeure notices are rising across supply networks.
Business continuity plans were not built for this
No crisis management scenario or tabletop exercise prepares an organization for sustaining that posture across three to six months. Yet that is exactly what today's environment demands. The planning cycle must change from recovery timelines to adaptive ones. Not "how quickly can we get back to normal?" but "what does normal look like in 90 days, and are we positioned for it?" (Learn more in Resilience Takes More Than a Business Continuity Plan).
Resilience as the operating model
Resilience cannot remain a response posture activated during a crisis, then stood down afterward. It must become how the business operates every day. That means:
- Build intelligence-led decision-making. The problem organizations have is too much uncontextualized data slowing decisions when speed matters most. Geopolitical signals, macroeconomic shifts, and supplier health indicators need to be centralized, filtered, and applied.
- Map and visualize your network. Spreadsheets don't show you where exposure sits or how it shifts. Overlay intelligence and risk onto your network in real time.
- Prioritize ruthlessly. Not all supply chains matter equally. Focus resilience activities on what matters most and build communication pathways with critical suppliers before you need them.
- Treat supplier relationships as a resilience function. When disruption is sustained, we question whether suppliers can survive. The goal is to migrate crisis capability into steady operations, so that when disruption hits, it's just how you operate.
Regulation is making resilience mandatory, not optional. For example, the EU's Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive has expanded to cover logistics, healthcare, semiconductors, and new technologies. Governments need trusted, resilient organizations within their critical infrastructure, and they're increasingly mandating that organizations prove it. (Read EU Critical Entities Resilience Directive (CER): Why it Matters).
Visibility into all suppliers, evidence of scenario based planning, and the ability to sustain operations during prolonged disruption are quickly becoming the baseline expectation. In this environment, those without a credible, intelligence led resilience model will find themselves exposed not just to disruption, but regulatory and reputational risk.
The window between a geopolitical event and its impact on your operations is shrinking. "How do you institutionalize the reflex to respond as quickly and accurately as possible?" asks Tony. The organizations that do will be best positioned when the next disruption hits.
Why BSI?
BSI Consulting’s risk-based approach to supply chain management programs empowers organizations to track compliance and vulnerabilities throughout the supply chain to maximize visibility and focus on the biggest threats facing their organization.
Meet our supply chain security and resilience planning experts:
Tony Pelli, Global Practice Director for Security & Resilience
David Fairnie, Principal Consultant specializing in supply chain security
