While the Internet abounds with information on history of Logistics and with logistical stories, it is instead quite poor with information on effective risk fighting, save for some very specific topics.

History is full of episodes where in winning battles, and therefore wars, Logistics was an instrumental challenge.

BUSINESS AS WARFARE
Just to name a few, the greek warlord Epaminondas and the USA General Sherman made a good use of logistics and overcame battle risks, according to V.D. Davis’ book The Soul of Battle, while General Patton’s impetuous attack was restrained by logistical constraints.

I don’t mean of course that modern business has to be similar to past or present warfare, although to some extent business and warfare go hand in hand, as far as strategy, tactics and operations are concerned.

There are more books that I’ve enjoyed reading: one is obviously Cornelius Ryan’s A Bridge too Far and Hans-Dieter Otto’s Collection of Military Errors, from Salamis to the Iraqi war.

I took notes from the above books.  Logistics is by far the main risk, followed closely by intelligence risk and – of course – leadership risk.

FIGHTING OR MITIGATING RISK
Ryan’s book is especially illuminating to me.  Reading it brought to mind the following ways to approach and fight risk:

1. Ignore risk.
2. Actively fight it;
3. Passively – yes, passively – fight risk;
4. A more or less balanced combination of the three above.

Ignoring risk is probably the easiest – and laziest – way to approach and fight it. I t can be summarized with the saying ‘cry wolf.’  It’s inexpensive in the short term but it often turns out to very costly and catastrophic in the medium or long term.

Actively fighting risk almost always implies to plan corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) and  implementing and monitoring their resulting effect(s). CAPA’s often require costly investments, both in term of equipment and personnel resources and last but not least effective training to the new or modified equipment and organizational structure.

Both of the above approaches have plusses and minuses and are often being detected and analyzed as ‘after-the-event’ measures to take, their predictive value is very hard to estimate and reproduce.

Passively fighting risk is another option.  If we look at risk as to a process just like quality, it has inputs, some kind of processing mechanisms, and outputs, that in the case of risk are adverse effects.

RISK AS A DRAGON
Now looking at Risk as to a medieval fire-breather dragon, if we leave him without food, he’ll sooner or later have no more power on us.

This is what happened to Napoleon’s and Hitler’s armies in Russia and, in more recent times, with guerrilla warfare.

Economically speaking, it’s no news that companies put their competitors in the ground by selling products at below-market prices.

Certainly this approach to fighting risk is not without cost.  It has therefore to be planned very carefully.  Also because the risk-fighting-organization has to counterattack at the right moment with the right resources to win competitive risk.

INFORMATION RISK
We’re all more or less concerned with our computer data and how they could be hacked, especially when we work in confidential, costly development, or implementation projects.  Here’s various options:

• Approach #1: very plain solution, we carry on ignoring any kind of risk.
• Approach #2: we protect our data with any kind of sophisticated software, yet any voluntary hacker will always be a step ahead.
• Approach #3: we’ll let the hacker steal or destroy dummy data, making him believe he was successful; but the really valuable data are still in our possession.

There’s no hacker who has unlimited resources, the trick is to take him to his – logistical – limit beyond which he will have to be very, very slow, or not move at all.

It’s a continual war, I told you.

The above is just an example among many.  The idea is to deprive risk of its logistical resources, burning the grass on which it feeds, or destroying the bridges it has to cross to reach us.

It may look as a romantic, warrior-like view.  I agree.  B ut in times where innovating management systems is instrumental to make them – more – effective, no weapon whatever should be left out..

I’m particularly keen in knowing your opinion on approach # 3

Thank you, and let’s live risk as combatable and winnable enemy.