When a factory in Reddi-wip’s supply chain suffered an explosion, little did they know that in a couple of months the resulting shortage of their popular canned cream brand (produced by ConAgra Foods) would blow up online.
By December, just as the Christmas season got into full swing, terms such as "Whippocalypse" and "Creamageddon" began trending on social media. The lack of canned cream for apple pie and pumpkin spiced lattes was causing an uproar online in the US.
What could ConAgra have done to prevent this?
Corporations like ConAgra should have active monitoring in place for their entire supply chain, to help ensure they are notified of any incidents and can take action as quickly as possible.
This gives additional time to help mitigate risk and prepare crisis comms to both staff, their distribution network and the community.
In some cases, early alerts give corporations enough time to initiate a plan B, avoiding a crisis altogether.
Is your corporation monitoring their supply chain?
If not, here are just a few more good reasons they should:
- Your executive team will be praising you for the early "heads up"
- You're ultimately protecting forecast revenue and future business opportunities
- Your executive team will have more time to initiate a plan B, or at least put together a solid PR plan
- Your operations team will have more time to redistribute their production line workers onto other tasks
Don't be the last to find out critical information. Ensure you know everything that's going on with your supply chain and be the first to know when news of a crisis breaks online. Gather situational awareness from Open Source Intelligence to stay one step ahead when disaster strikes.
