Understanding Business Risks

Sustainability in Supply Chains A guide for private markets investors 🌍 Private markets investors face increasing pressure to integrate sustainability into supply chain management. This guide by PRI explains why supply chain due diligence is essential and how investors can embed it across the investment cycle to safeguard assets, reduce risks, and capture value. Supply chain risks, ranging from human rights abuses to environmental violations, have become financially material issues with direct implications for investor performance, regulatory compliance, and reputation. Human rights concerns are significant. Forced labour affects an estimated 28 million people worldwide, with rising risks in major sourcing countries such as India, Vietnam, China, Mexico and the United States. Migrant workers are particularly vulnerable, while child labour remains prevalent in high-risk industries and regions. Working conditions also present serious challenges. Excessive hours, unsafe workplaces and poor wages undermine the stability of global supply chains. These issues are concentrated in industries such as apparel, electronics, food and agriculture, construction materials and mining where oversight is often limited. Environmental risks add complexity. Nearly half of global sourcing markets face high or extreme risk of violations related to waste management, emissions and hazardous materials. Biodiversity loss and deforestation linked to commodities such as palm oil, soy and timber increase exposure to both regulatory and operational disruptions. Regulatory requirements are tightening worldwide. The EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the EU Deforestation Regulation compel companies and investors to identify, mitigate and report risks throughout their supply chains. Failure to comply carries financial consequences. Volkswagen shipments were detained at US ports, Shein faced delays in listing plans due to sourcing concerns and companies in Germany were investigated and fined for breaches of the Supply Chain Act. These examples show how supply chain management is now a strategic necessity. Proactive due diligence creates opportunities. Companies with strong supply chain transparency and risk management can secure contracts, improve resilience, reduce costs and strengthen their brand. Investors can leverage these practices to enhance portfolio performance and protect value at exit. The guide explains that due diligence should be present at every stage of the investment cycle. This includes governance and policies, early screening, detailed risk assessments, legal agreements, active engagement, monitoring and exit planning. Clear roles, data systems and training are critical. Integrating sustainability into supply chain due diligence strengthens both risk management and value creation. #sustainability #business #sustainable #esg

I hear from a lot of social media teams that they “ask for forgiveness, not permission” to use songs that they don’t have the rights to on TikTok and Instagram. Turns out forgiveness is expensive. Last week, UMG sued Quince for copyright infringement for including unlicensed music in Instagram and TikTok posts. While I’ve talked about brands being sued by music labels before, this one is interesting because it also holds the brand responsible for sponsored influencer posts that use unlicensed music. UMG has identified a whopping 130 works infringed by Quince. The exposure in statutory damages alone is over $20M. I asked marketing lawyer Rob Freund what brands should take away from this lawsuit: “The Quince case is the latest in a string of cases against brands using unlicensed popular songs on social media, both on brand-owned pages and via influencers. The takeaway is that brands cannot use the general popular music libraries that the platforms provide for any commercial content (which includes any posting on brand-owned pages) and cannot treat influencer content as a copyright safe harbor. The platform licenses do not extend to commercial use, unless you use the designated commercial sound libraries. Any brand running a creator program needs a music licensing strategy and clear contractual guardrails for its influencers.”

Take the leap 🚀 Golden handcuffs pose a significant barrier to realising our full potential. They come in various forms such as a steady salary, sticking to routine, remaining within our local area, and more. Often, we choose certainty over embracing the unknown, without fully understanding why. I've certainly been guilty of this myself 😅, and that inclination still lurks within me. However, altering our attitude towards risk and failure could be the key to unlocking a more fulfilling life. Here are some tangible steps to help you become more comfortable with taking the leap: * Reflect on Your Values: Take the time to identify what truly matters to you and what you want to achieve in life. Understanding your values can provide clarity and motivation to pursue your goals despite the uncertainties. * Set Clear Goals: Define specific, achievable goals that align with your values. Break them down into smaller, manageable steps to make the journey less daunting and more achievable. * Challenge Comfort Zones: Regularly challenge yourself to step outside your comfort zone, whether it's trying new experiences, taking on new responsibilities, or pursuing unfamiliar opportunities. Each small step builds confidence and resilience. * Embrace Failure as Growth: Shift your perspective on failure from something to be avoided to an inevitable part of the learning process. View failures as opportunities for growth and learning, rather than as setbacks. * Seek Support: Surround yourself with a supportive network of friends, family, mentors, and peers who encourage and inspire you to pursue your aspirations. Their guidance and encouragement can provide invaluable support during times of uncertainty. * Develop Resilience: Cultivate resilience by practising mindfulness, self-compassion, and positive self-talk. Building emotional strength and adaptability can help you navigate challenges and setbacks more effectively. * Take Calculated Risks: Assess the potential risks and rewards of different opportunities carefully. While it's essential to embrace uncertainty, it's also crucial to make informed decisions and take calculated risks rather than reckless ones. * Celebrate Progress: Acknowledge and celebrate your achievements, no matter how small. Recognising your progress reinforces your confidence and motivates you to continue pursuing your goals. 💡Steven Bartlett

68% of ECC Customers are concerned about the high costs of S/4HANA migration. What’s the real solution? Staying on ECC is the more expensive choice in the long run. Here’s why: → End of support (2027/2030) → Rising maintenance & compliance costs → Limited innovation & AI capabilities → Integration challenges → Higher Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) SAP will stop mainstream support for ECC in 2027, with costly extended support until 2030. Running an unsupported ERP means: → higher risks → expensive maintenance. Legacy systems require: → more custom fixes → higher maintenance fees → additional spending to meet regulatory requirements. ECC lacks the AI, automation, and real-time analytics that S/4HANA offers, leading to: → inefficiencies → lost opportunities. As Cloud adoption grows, ECC struggles to integrate with modern AI, data, and cloud solutions, increasing IT complexity and costs. S/4HANA migration has upfront costs but staying on ECC leads to higher long-term expenses, from IT maintenance to lost productivity. What is the BEST SOLUTION for Customers? A well-planned S/4HANA migration with AI, Cloud, and data-driven strategies to maximize ROI and reduce costs over time. #sapconsultants #S4HANA #sap #sapbtp #abap #Cloud #genai #AI #data #sapcommunity

🚨The greatest drop-off is from Product Details Page To Cart Page, so we must improve our Product Details Page! Not so fast ✋ In today's age of data obsession, almost every company has an analytics infrastructure that pumps out a tonne of numbers. But rarely do teams invest time, discipline & curiosity to interpret numbers meaningfully. I will illustrate with an example. Let's take a simple e-commerce funnel. Home Page ~ 100 users List Page ~ 90 users Product Display Page ~ 70 users Cart Page ~ 20 users Address Page ~ 15 users Payments Page ~12 users Order Confirmation Page ~ 9 users A team that just "looks" at data will immediately conclude that the drop-off is most steep between Product Details Page & Cart Page. As a consequence they will start putting in a lot of fire power into solving user problems on Product Display Page. But if the team were data "curious", would frame hypothesis such as "do certain types of users reach cart page more effectively than others?" and go on to look at users by purchase buckets, geography, category etc and look at the entire funnel end to end to observe patterns. In the above scenario, it's likely that the 20 cart users were power users whilst new & early purchasers don't make it to this stage. The reason could be poor recommendations on the list page or customers are only visiting the product display page to see a larger close up of the product. So how should one go about looking at data ? Do ✅ Start with an open & curious mind ✅ Start with hypothesis ✅ Identify metrics & counter metrics that will help prove/disprove hypothesis ✅ Identify the various dimensions that could influence behaviours - user type, geography, category, device type, gender, price point, day, time etc. The dimensions will be specific to your line of business. ✅ Check for data quality and consistency ✅ Look at upstream and downstream behaviour to see how the behaviour is influenced upstream and what happens to the behaviour downstream. ✅ Check for historical evidence of causality Dont ❌ Look at data to satisfy your bias ❌ Rush to conclude your interpretation ❌ Look at data in isolation - - - TLDR - Be curious. Not confirmed. #metrics #analytics #productmanagement #productmanager #productcraft #deepdiveswithdsk

A big 4 consulting firm implemented ERP which caused a major business disruption for a client.   Top level partners in top notch suits made best promises in a beautifully crafted presentation.   The client got excited. Deal signed.   I joined the party at the SIT phase. Which could not complete.   The integration between ERP, WMS and boundary systems was failing.   SIT lasted for 3 more months. Go live data had to be pushed. But the integration still did not work.   The burn rate was insane.   Eventually the leadership decided to make it live and forced half-baked solution.   Yay! Everyone was happy until they realized what a sh*t show they were in.   Right after go live the planners and supply chain operations realized that the stock on hand in ERP, WMS, their custom system and on the shelf were all different.   They had to call the warehouse to make sure they had the right quantity of equipment.   The result: ·      All the departments started overordering to cover up for their projects. ·      2 million dollar sales were lost. No stock. Couldn’t deliver. ·      Inventory across the supply chain grew by $20M. ·      It took 18 months to stabilize the system.   Why did that happen? 1.      The vendor recently bought the WMS solution and did not yet build native integration. 2.      Poor integration between the systems. Transactions were stuck due to errors. 3.      Terrible user experience. Warehouse workers could not perform their role in a system and circumvented the restrictions. 4.      Lack of training and end user support   Want to avoid this costly mistake? Here’s what you should consider. ·      ERP can look great on a slide deck but may not necessarily fit your business ·      ERP can fit your business but not your boundary systems ·      An implementation partner can have a big brand name, but one integration architect can screw the whole thing ·      Hire an independent ERP adviser to make sure you have the right solution and partner   In summary:   Don’t trust ERP fairy tales.   Do your due diligence.   #ERP    #TheERPGuy     #ERPImplementation

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗱… One employee installs an agent. It connects to Gmail, GitHub, Jira, Notion, browsers, and APIs. Five minutes later, it can read your company’s emails, scan your code, summarize internal tickets, and move sensitive data without security seeing the full chain. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗺𝗮𝘆 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗯𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗜 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆. That is the real risk with shadow AI agents. They are becoming invisible employees with company-wide access. So I decided to play around with Pancake and create my own: 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁-𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗖𝗔𝗦𝗕. Not another dashboard. A runtime control plane that discovers agents, builds a live registry, monitors tool calls, redacts sensitive data, quarantines rogue agents, and blocks risky data movement across SaaS, APIs, browsers, email, code repos, and endpoints. 𝗜𝗻 𝗮 𝗳𝗲𝘄 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘀, 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗦𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 I can spin up the agents I need, connect the tools they already use, and start discovering and governing shadow AI before it spreads. Same place people work. Same place security gets control. No separate dashboard. No long setup. No security blind spot. Let enterprises adopt AI agents without turning every employee into an unmonitored data-exfiltration surface. That’s the wedge. #ad

Your Procurement Cycle is a Minefield of Risks. Are You Walking Blind? Procurement Excellence | 17 JAN 2026 - Procurement always navigates hidden risks that can derail projects, inflate costs, and tarnish reputations. Ignoring them? That’s the real risk. Here are 7 CRITICAL risks lurking in your procurement cycle + how to defuse them: #1. Performance Risk ↳Suppliers underdelivering on quality/timelines. ↳Fix: Clear KPIs. Penalty clauses. Regular performance reviews. #2.Specification Risk ↳Vague requirements lead to wrong deliverables. ↳Fix:Collaborate with stakeholders upfront & freeze specs before sourcing. #3. Supplier Financial Risk ↳Bankrupt suppliers = halted operations. ↳Fix:Run credit checks, diversify suppliers, demand financial disclosures. #4. Reputation Risk (ESG) ↳Child labor or pollution in supply chain = brand crisis. ↳Fix: Supplier ESG screenings. Audits. Sustainability clauses. #5. Price Volatility Risk ↳Market swings crush budgets. ↳Fix: Fixed-price contracts. Hedging strategies. Cost-indexed clauses. #6. Fraud & Corruption Risk ↳Kickbacks, fake invoicing, collusion. ↳Fix: Segregate duties. Whistleblower policies. AI-powered anomaly detection. #7. Contract Leakage Risk ↳Unused discounts, auto-renewals, scope creep. ↳Fix:Centralized contract repository. Milestone alerts. Spend analytics. #Bonus I: Over-Reliance Risk ↳One supplier holds 80% of your spend. ↳Fix: Strategic supplier diversification. #Bonus II: Cybersecurity Risk ↳Suppliers accessing your systems >>data breaches. ↳Fix:Vendor security assessments. Zero-trust architecture. #Bonus III: Supply Disruption Risk ↳Natural disasters, geopolitics or supplier failures. ↳Fix: Dual sourcing, Safety stock & Real-time supply chain monitoring. Risk Mitigation Playbook: ✅ Proactive: Map risks at EVERY stage ✅ Use AI for predictive analytics, blockchain for traceability. ✅ Train & empower teams to spot red flags early. ✅ Collaborate & partner with Legal, Finance, Operations. Risk-aware procurement NOT about avoiding suppliers Procurement can’t own risk alone! Build resilient, ethical & agile supply chains that drive sustainable value. What risks keep YOU up at night? ♻️ Share to help someone in your network. ➕️ Follow Frederick for more content like this. #ProcurementExcellence #RiskManagement #Leadership

An audit of S-corporations by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) recently found many taxpayers are failing to pay themselves a reasonable wage. TIGTA reviewed all S-Corp returns received between 2016-2018 and found about 266,000 returns that had a single shareholder whose S-Corp had a profit more than $100,000 but failed to pay officer’s compensation. The TIGTA audit estimated about $3.3 billion of FICA payments were avoided by these shareholders. Generally, a great tax planning tool is for a single-member LLC to make an election to be taxed as an S-Corp. Making this election helps the business owner to reduce Social Security and Medicare taxes. This is accomplished by the owner of the S-Corp paying themselves a reasonable wage which is subject to employment taxes. The remaining net profit of the S-Corp is not included as part of the officer’s wage. Therefore, it is not subject to employment taxes and the shareholder can generally take a tax-free distribution of the net profit. Unfortunately, this has been an abused planning tool where business owners fail to pay themselves a reasonable wage, but take tax-free distributions from the S-Corp. It is an IRS red flag and they have begun to focus more on shareholders who abuse the reasonable compensation requirement. Today’s post is a warning to those S-Corp owners who are not receiving officer’s compensation. Please consider having a conversation with your tax advisor to make sure you are compliant and safe from a potential IRS visit. Happy tax season! #realestate #realtors #realestateinvestors #commercialrealestate #ericshadowenslovesrealestate

The growing complexity of supply chain interdependencies is creating significant cybersecurity risks. In my latest article for the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity, I outline five key risk factors and what organisations must do to mitigate them: 1️⃣ Cyber Inequity – Large organisations are improving cyber resilience, but SMEs remain vulnerable. They must view cybersecurity as a business priority, while industry collaboration and policy support can help bridge the gap. 2️⃣ Limited Supply Chain Visibility – Expanding supply chains make it harder to assess supplier security. Without clear incentives, compliance gaps persist, increasing exposure to cyber threats. 3️⃣ Third-Party Software Vulnerabilities – AI and open-source adoption introduce new risks, yet only 37% of organisations assess AI tool security before deployment. A structured security framework is essential. 4️⃣ Dependence on Critical Providers – Over-reliance on a few key suppliers creates systemic points of failure. Resilient IT architectures and strong business continuity planning are critical. 5️⃣ Geopolitical Risks – Cyber threats are increasingly shaped by global tensions, disrupting supply chains and increasing attack sophistication. Organisations must integrate geopolitical risk assessments into their cybersecurity strategies. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗡𝗲𝘅𝘁? Organisations must prioritize visibility, support smaller partners, and invest in resilience. Strong business continuity planning, robust IT management, and proactive threat detection are non-negotiable. Cybersecurity is not just an IT issue—it’s a strategic imperative. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/g-yQ2QRa #CyberSecurity #SupplyChain #AI #RiskManagement