The risk of counterfeit items entering the MRO supply chain needs to be taken seriously
When it comes to supply chain risk, some threats are outside of an organisation’s control – as the coronavirus pandemic demonstrated. The impact of Covid-19 has now eased significantly, with only 2% of respondents in the latest Indirect Procurement Report from RS and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) citing pandemic recovery as a big issue in the year ahead.
Organisations can, however, mitigate against other risks that may affect the maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) supply chain. Counterfeit products are one example, but the same Indirect Procurement Report found that 57% of procurement professionals in the UK do not believe this is an issue for indirect materials.
Under the radar risk
Are they right that this is not an issue or are they simply unaware of its likelihood? Probably the latter, argues Helen Alder, Head of Knowledge at CIPS, because fake goods are a much bigger problem than the industry recognises.
“While the responses to our research suggest that counterfeit products aren’t a big problem in the MRO space, it is quite possible (and I believe, likely) that procurement teams simply aren’t aware of the issue, as a lot of MRO purchases are devolved to end users,” says Alder. “Where you don’t have a purchasing process set up by the procurement function in the business, there is a risk that employees – because of the nature of MRO – will buy urgently needed parts from the quickest and cheapest supplier.