A thorough and enlightening exploration of the importance of supply chain risk management that needs more examples for...
by Pascal vander Straeten ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A research-driven assessment examines the role of supply chain risk management in the financial industry.
In this business book, vander Straeten (An Overture to Geofinance, 2018, etc.) makes a case for distinguishing supply chain risk management from general risk management in banking and financial organizations. The author explains why supply chain risk management is a crucial business process that ensures corporate stability and minimal disruption from rare but potentially disastrous events. Vander Straeten reviews and synthesizes much of the existing literature on the topic, and a lengthy bibliography supports the book’s detailed presentation of supply chain risk management research. The volume establishes the theoretical frameworks the author uses throughout the text, including the major difference between supply chains in service industries and those in enterprises that produce tangible goods (“Service supply chain deals with flow of information, capacity, and cash”). He then explains the various components of supply chain risk management, including service-level agreements, resilience, metrics, and the role of capital. After laying the groundwork for its arguments, the book contends that supply chain risk management should be an integral part of planning in the financial sector. According to the author, “Four primary external risk factors are driving the need for improved supply chain resiliency: (i) the demand-driven nature of today’s markets; (ii) environmental compliance; (iii) globalization; and (iv) increased market velocity.” Vander Straeten details why and how business leaders should incorporate this process into their strategies. Best practices for managing and responding to risks are also presented. The text is informative but extremely dense and most appropriate for readers with knowledge of financial and banking practices, although it does attempt to define the many specialized terms and concepts necessary to understanding the book. Readers will find that the author is extremely knowledgeable about the subject and has produced a volume based on substantial research. He makes a compelling case for an approach to risk management that acknowledges the unique position of the service industry supply chain, distinguishing it both from supply chain management for physical goods and the operational risk management that is part of a financial institution’s regular business processes. The prose is often clear and direct (“When the disruption has happened, KPIs can also be useful in monitoring the impacts and taking actions”; “Investment in risk management is designed to avoid something happening, rather than to make something happen”), but there are limitations. While the book is highly illuminating, it addresses its concepts primarily in general terms and is less effective at providing concrete examples of how the ideas it covers can be implemented in practice. There are few specific instances of how to manage risk in the service supply chain. This is one work where the addition of anecdotes—either stories of real companies instigating new procedures or case studies of fictional scenarios—would have made it a more useful tool for those looking to make risk management decisions. In addition, the volume would benefit from further editing, including cutting some repetitive sections. Vander Straeten has a tendency to repeat himself in detail—often word for word—at paragraph length (for example, the discussions of “mega-disasters...tsunami” on pages 21 and 110).
A thorough and enlightening exploration of the importance of supply chain risk management that needs more examples for readers.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Value4Risk LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
Did you like this book?
More by Pascal vander Straeten
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
Share your opinion of this book
Did you like this book?
More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HOLOCAUST | HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY
Share your opinion of this book
Did you like this book?
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
© Copyright 2022 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.