Supply Chain Risk Illumination Professional Tools and Services BPAs

Consider DoD sales relative to total global sales for the facility.

• “Mixed” market is ~50% DoD;
• Significant is ~>60% for DoD or >60% for non-DoD; Very Strong or very weak DoD dominance can be risky for different reasons: High dependence on DoD contracts makes a facility more susceptible to DoD funding decisions. Low dependence on contracts makes the DoD more susceptible to business decisions by the facility.

• Funding is money which a government or organization provides for a particular purpose. If sufficient funding is unavailable, it will limit the provider’s ability to meet requirements.
• An absence or limit in the assortment of capital a business can access to reinvest into business operations.

In a business context, operational efficiency is a measurement of resource allocation and can be defined as the ratio between an output gained from the business and an input to run a business operation. When improving operational efficiency, the output to input ratio improves.

Operational risk summarizes the uncertainties and hazards a company faces when it attempts to do its day-to-day business activities within a given field or industry. A type of business risk, it can result from breakdowns in internal procedures, people and systems-as opposed to problems incurred from external forces, such as political or economic events, or inherent to the entire market or market segment, known as systematic risk.

Operational risk can also be classified as a variety of unsystematic risk, which is unique to a specific company or industry.

Industrial espionage, economic espionage, corporate spying or corporate espionage is a form of espionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of purely national security.

While economic espionage is conducted or orchestrated by governments and is international in scope, industrial or corporate espionage is more often national and occurs between companies or corporations.

• Destruction of an employer’s property (such as tools or materials) or the hindering of manufacturing by discontented workers
• Destructive or obstructive action carried on by a civilian or enemy agent to hinder a nation’s war effort
• An act or process tending to hamper or hurt
• Deliberate subversion

The condition of being exposed to several events: such as:

• the condition of being presented to view or made known
• the condition of being unprotected especially from severe weather
• the condition of being subject to some effect or influence
• the condition of being at risk of financial loss

The risk that political changes or instability in a country could pose to a supply chain. Instability could stem from a change in government, legislative bodies, other foreign policymakers or military control. Political risk is also known as “geopolitical risk,” and becomes more of a factor as the time horizon of investment gets longer.

Government risk manifests when the actions of government increase uncertainty with respect to an organization, project or activity.

An example of government risk is when poor behavior of an industry or sector leads to a government policy or regulatory response.

Fraudulent activities by Federal or State employees, contractors, subcontractors, or any other participants on government contracts. Suspected fraudulent activities include, but are not limited to:

• falsifying information on contract proposals
• using Federal funds to purchase items that are not for Government use
• billing more than one contract for the same work
• billing for expenses not incurred as part of the contract
• billing for work that was never performed, falsifying data
• substituting approved materials with unauthorized products
• misrepresenting a project’s status to continue receiving Government funds
• charging higher rates than those stated or negotiated for in the bid or contract
• influencing government employees to award a grant or contract to a particular company, family member, or friend.

Suspend - to temporarily pause or delay work with the option to continue later. This action must be taken by a suspending official and executed in accordance with FAR 9.4.

Debar - to disqualify the person or company from receiving contracts. Must be completed by a debarring official and executed in compliance with FAR 9.4.

Practices that unduly restrain competitive trade.

Monopolistic practices - Companies’ actions to create a monopoly. A monopoly refers to when a company and its product offerings dominate a sector or industry. Monopolies can be considered an extreme result of free-market capitalism in that, absent any restriction or restraints, a single company or group becomes large enough to own all or nearly all of the market (goods, supplies, commodities, infrastructure, and assets) for a particular type of product or service. The term monopoly is often used to describe an entity that has total or near-total control of a market.

• PII: The removal or unlawful taking of information that directly identifies an individual (e.g., name, address, social security number or other identifying number or code, telephone number, email address, etc.) or by which an agency intends to identify specific individuals in conjunction with other data elements, i.e., indirect identification. These data elements may include a combination of gender, race, birth date, geographic indicator, and other descriptors. 
  CII: The removal or unlawful taking of information that a defense organization has determined to be valuable to an adversary. This information may vary based on the organization’s role.

Operational Security is an analytical process that classifies information assets and determines the controls required to protect these assets.

After vulnerabilities have been determined, the next step is to determine the threat level associated with each of them. OPSEC encourages managers to view operations or projects from the outside in, or from the perspective of competitors (or enemies) in order to identify weaknesses. If an organization can easily extract their own information while acting as an outsider, odds are adversaries outside the organization can as well. Completing regular risk assessments and OPSEC is key to identifying vulnerabilities.