The weather has always been tough on the supply chain, but climate change risk is only rising. Whether its floods, droughts, storms or other extreme weather, your supply chain needs to be ready. With one of the coldest winters in 20 years coming to pass, firms are reminded of the impact weather can have on their company.
Here are four steps that your business should take to adapt to climate change:
1. Identify Areas of Risk
The first step to avoiding climate change risk is to identify which areas can be affected by what. Perhaps a drought means water shortages impeding crop growth. Or a bad winter and snow storms delays your trucks. Or even floods shutting down parts of your operations. All of these unpredictable weather conditions come with a cost to your business. As a result, you need to map out which parts of your supply chain are at risk.
2. Quantify Your Climate Change Risk
After identifying the areas that will be affected, you will need to quantify the cost to your business. For example, let’s say you grow cotton for clothing that you sell. But, the location of your cotton fields are prone to severe droughts. The droughts affecting the production of your clothing is a huge expense that you need to put a number on.
3. Adapt Supply Chain To Weather Conditions
Now that you know climate change’s impact on you, it is time to adapt your business. In the example earlier, you could adapt by shifting over to using a synthetic material instead of growing cotton. This will avoid the climate risk and the cost of not being able to produce clothing due to droughts. Adapting to the climate change means optimizing your ability to operate within severe weather conditions. Whether that means you avoid them entirely or use technology to improve your ability to operate in harsh climates is up to you.
4. Track Progress
Track the progress of the changes you have made to your supply chain and any future risks that may arise as a result of climate change. This will keep your company informed and prepared for any future weather-related hurdles.
Clear Spider is the leader in collaborative inventory management software on the cloud. Clear Spider offers a reliable inventory management system to help you keep track of what you have and where you have it. Clear Spider will help you to monitor what products your clients have in stock and when it’s time to send them more. Use Clear Spider’s inventory management software for accurate counts, cost-effective supply chain strategies and improve customer service.
Learn more about Clear Spider’s Inventory Management and Control solution.
