The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage (Hardcover)

~ Yossi Sheffi (Author) "On Friday night, March 17, 2000, a line of thunderstorms rolled through the desert city of Albuquerque, New Mexico..." (more)
Key Phrases: chain resilience, port lockout, resilient supply chains, United States, West Coast, Land Rover (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Resilient Enterprise is more than a grab bag of stories about fires, thieves, and tornadoes. It is the timely analysis of an important—and overlooked aspect of business strategy. Mr. Sheffi argues that crisis control can be a competitive advantage for companies that get it right. Wise planning at headquarters is part of the answer, but only part: Companies need a whole culture of flexibility. It is impossible to know where trouble will hit next, but it is possible to create an atmosphere in which people at all levels respond to disruptions quickly and confidently. Metaphorically, levees can break at any time."
— Wall Street Journal

"The Resilient Enterprise is the must-read post-9/11 book for every CEO, senior manager, and company director. Sheffi provides the perfect antidote for the all-too-human tendency to reach for rosy glasses despite the fact that disasters and acts of catastrophic terrorism are not a question of if, but when. Companies that 'think the unthinkable' and embrace the commonsense recommendations outlined in this book will prosper both before and after we hit the inevitable bumps along the 21st-century highway."
—Stephen E. Flynn, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, and author of America the Vulnerable

"A crucial book for anyone involved in operations and logistics to understand how to build a truly flexible organization that can not only withstand but thrive in a risky world."
—Patrick T. Harker, Dean, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

"Excellent!! I really enjoyed reading it. For me, unlike many business books, it held my attention and I wanted to keep reading to get to the next chapter. The strength of the book is the 'real life' examples and the vignettes woven into the topics being discussed.
The content is so good that if you look at the examples/discussions though the government's eyes, there is knowledge to be gained throughout the book. I appreciate the opportunity to read it."
—Kenneth Wykle, President, National Defense Transportation Association

"However counter-intuitive this may sound, Sheffi's detailed examination of the supply chain breadsowns at companies such as Amazon, Dell, General Motors, Intel, and UPS leaves little room for doubting his key messages: disaster might not be frequent but it is inevitable. And, the measures that organizations undertake before the event will almost certainly have a greater influence on the subsequent consequences than anything they might do afterwards."
— Information Age

"In our enormously complex world, disruption is an inevitability and resilience a requirement. Yossi Sheffi's landmark book offers managers a comprehensive approach to preparing for what cannot be predicted."
—Michael Hammer, author of Reengineering the Corporation

"In this world of 'lean inventory' this is a cautionary book that needs to be taken seriously."
— 800 CEO-Read

"Insightful, shrewd, and creative. This book shows how enterprises properly made resilient against both terrorism and the disruptions inherent in globalization can also have the flexibility to respond more effectively to today's fast-changing markets."
—R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence, Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton

"The book offers solid advice and plenty of case studies on reducing vulnerability (start with an exhaustive analysis of your weaknesses), and on increasing supply chain flexibility (consider a last-minute customization program for certain products). And by the way, flexible companies are also top performers on a daily basis, writes Sheffi.

We especially appreciated the book's "Profile of a Disruption" and its warning that disruptions can keep on disrupting long after the fire is out. Just ask Ericsson."
— Sean Silverthorne, HBS Working Knowledge

"This book offers reassurance to the CEO who wakes to a nightmare of what Sheffi calls high-impact/low-probability disruptions. It concludes with recommendations for securing a resilient organization that can suffer the shock of potentially catastrophic destruction, learn from it, and bounce back."
—Dame Sandra Dawson, Director, Judge Institute of Management, University of Cambridge

"This is the best business book I have read this year. It will be essential for senior managers and CEOs, for whom it will provide much food for thought and a stimulus to action."
—John Allan, Chief Executive, Exel PLC

"This may be the most important business book that you will buy this year.... Sheffi, an MIT Professor of engineering who writes with refreshing clarity and first-hand business knowledge has produced a practical guide, not just another risk management manual."
— Director Magazine

"Yossi Sheffi's book makes it vividly clear that the winners on the competitive playing field will be those companies who effectively manage their supply chains, particularly in the face of adversity. This is a boardroom issue, and a must-read."
—Michael L. Eskew, Chairman & CEO, UPS

"[Sheffi is] quickly becoming the global expert on resilient enterprises."
— John Robb’s Weblog

Product Description

Gold Award Winner for Business and Economics in the 2005 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards

What happens when fire strikes the manufacturing plant of the sole supplier for the brake pressure valve used in every Toyota? When a hurricane shuts down production at a Unilever plant? When Dell and Apple chip manufacturers in Taiwan take weeks to recover from an earthquake? When the U.S. Pacific ports are shut down during the Christmas rush? When terrorists strike? In The Resilient Enterprise, Yossi Sheffi shows that companies' fortunes in the face of such business shocks depend more on choices made before the disruption than they do on actions taken in the midst of it—and that resilience benefits firms every day, disaster or no disaster. He shows how companies can build in flexibility throughout their supply chains, based on proven design principles and the right culture—balancing security, redundancy, and short-term profits. And he shows how investments in resilience and flexibility not only reduce risk but create a competitive advantage in the increasingly volatile marketplace.

Sheffi describes the way companies can increase security—reducing the likelihood of a disruption—with layered defenses, the tracking and analysis of “near-misses,” fast detection, and close collaboration with government agencies, trading partners, and even competitors. But the focus of the book is on resilience—the ability to bounce back from disruptions and disasters—by building in redundancy and flexibility. For example, standardization, modular design, and collaborative relationships with suppliers (and other stakeholders) can help create a robust supply chain. And a corporate culture of flexibility—with distributed decision making and communications at all levels—can create a resilient enterprise.

Sheffi provides tools for companies to reduce the vulnerability of the supply chain they live in. And along the way he tells the stories of dozens of enterprises, large and small, including Toyota, Nokia, General Motors, Zara, Land Rover, Chiquita, Aisin Seiki, Southwest Airlines, UPS, Johnson and Johnson, Intel, Amazon.com, the U.S. Navy, and others, from across the globe. Their successes, failures, preparations, and methods provide a rich set of lessons in preparing for and managing disruptions.
Additional material available at www.TheResilientEnterprise.com

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; illustrated edition edition (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262195372
• ISBN-13: 978-0262195379
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #455,937 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Risk management for the supply chain, December 5, 2005

By	Stephen W. Roberts "Financial Executive" (Bemus Point, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In this book, MIT Professor Sheffi analyzes high-impact business disruptions, their causes and consequences. Using real life examples, he illustrates how even a small disruption in one part of a tight supply chain can result in major problems elsewhere. He discusses several risk assessment methodologies for estimating probabilities and severity of various types of losses (natural, accidental, and intentional). A brief introduction to current supply chain theory and practice follows.

The heart of this book is about specific strategies that a number of enterprises are using to reduce their vulnerability to disruptions and to build flexibility into the supply chain. Topics include early warning systems, collaboration, redundancy, product redesign, customer relations management and cultural change. Professor Sheffi illustrates how various companies have innovated and implemented these strategies. He argues that supply chain integrity and security should be as integral to enterprise management as is quality or safety.

Supply chain management innovations such as outsourcing, just-in-time delivery and supply base consolidation require corporate risk managers to develop new loss control strategies and competencies. Business competition is now based on the capabilities of the entire supply chain, not just an individual company. Risk managers must carefully look up and down the entire length of the supply chain to identify vulnerabilities and to make sure that appropriate risk controls and/or risk transfer and financing methods (e.g., contingent business interruption insurance) are in place.

The resilient enterprise recognizes that its supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and prepares accordingly. In today's complex business environment, disruptions somewhere along the supply chain are all but inevitable. Preparation and flexibility not only improve the odds of an enterprise's survival, but may also become a decisive competitive advantage when disruptions adversely affect rival enterprises.

As a 30+ year practitioner of corporate risk management and insurance, I recommend Yossi Sheffi's The Resilient Enterprise to all risk managers striving to integrate sound risk management theory and practice into their organization's standard operating procedures.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Resilient Enterprise: A MUST read for all, December 7, 2005

By	Richard E. Widup Jr. (Stamford, CT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Yossi Sheffi has compiled a masterful accounting of the challenges businesses face every day. His depictions of events are real-life, his advice on preventing and recovering from major disruptions is sound and he presents this all in an extremely readable fashion. This book is a must read for everyone in business, especially those who do not understand the value added proposition that corporate security teams add to the bottom line.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How different companies deal with disruptions, February 6, 2006

By	Ziad Zacca "cyberzizo" (Jdeidet-el-Metn, Mount Lebanon Lebanon) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book explains how different companies (some competitors) dealt with major disruptions in the last 2 decades, why some benefit while others are doomed. This book will not give you clear guidelines on how to become resilient/flexible, but how other companies did it and turned disruptions to their advantage.
A MUST READ!!!