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Seminar Theme
"Our greatest glory is not
in never falling, but in rising
every time we fall."
- Confucius
The end of the Cold War led to the
opening up of new markets and expansion
of global business like never before.
Foreign direct investment and
cross-border mergers and acquisitions
created massive corporations with
worldwide reach and impact. Corporations
behaved as if unconstrained by distance
and political and social considerations.
In the more recent, post-9/11 era,
however, corporate life and work have
been severely impacted by numerous
geopolitical, technological, and other
challenges, and one could be forgiven
for thinking of the Cold War period as
the good old days. (In a reaction to the
Russian President Vladimir Putin's
critique of the U.S. and NATO at a
conference in Munich in early February,
the new U.S. Secretary of Defense even
expressed nostalgia about "those Cold
War days when everything was so
simple.")
According to the Council on
Competitiveness, "As the global
footprint of firms expands, so too do
the risks they face on a daily basis." "Extended supply chains, technology
interdependencies, IT vulnerabilities,
mutating viruses, turbulent
geo-politics, flat world economics and
even weather phenomena all combine to
make doing business - well, risky
business."
Multinational corporations are now
active in over 70 countries rated as
"medium" to "extreme" risk, with tens of billions of dollars invested
there. In the post-9/11 digital world,
national and homeland security is being
increasingly recognized as a
competitiveness issue by both business
and government. According to the
Council's 2003 Competitiveness and
Security Survey, 71 percent of corporate
respondents said that increased security
investments improved their long-term
productivity and profitability.
However, only 36% of American CEOs
believe that risk management is a
priority for their corporations,
compared to 45% of European CEOs and 67%
of Asian CEOs (Conference Board, 2006).
Over 800 companies that suffered
supply-chain disruptions during
1989-2000 experienced 33-40% lower stock
market returns than their industry
peers, irrespective of industry, cause
of disruption, or time period (Singhal
and Hendricks, 2006).
Geopolitical and other risks are, of
course, not confined to
globally-networked industries,
multinational corporations, or to
emerging markets. Organizations of all
size and located anywhere are
susceptible to catastrophic/emergency
and disruptive challenges - natural,
accidental, or deliberate - at home and
abroad.
Enterprise
Resilience
Enterprise resilience has been
defined variously by different
commentators and organizations.
Management guru Gary Hamel defines
resilience as the ability of companies
to "face the challenge of a long-term,
irreversible decline in the economic
efficiency of their core business
model." According to the Council on
Competitiveness, resilience is "the
ability to avoid, deter, protect,
respond, and adapt to market,
technology, and operational
disruptions." The Center for Enterprise
Resilience at Ohio State University
suggests that enterprise resilience has
both strategic and operational
aspects. At the strategic level,
managers must proactively design a
robust enterprise that is able to
anticipate, respond to, and withstand
challenges to its survival, continuity,
and growth. At the operational level,
organizations must develop the capacity
to respond rapidly to challenges as they
arise and to adapt to changing
circumstances.
Global Security and
Enterprise Resilience
The seminar on Global Security and
Enterprise Resilience will therefore
explore the international and homeland
security implications of globalization
and their impact on enterprise
resilience and competitiveness. The key
purpose of the seminar is to help
improve organizational capacity to
respond to emergency, catastrophic, and
disruptive challenges.
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