Supply chains have always faced disruption. What has changed is the number of things that can now go wrong at the same time – and how quickly a problem in one part of the organization can spread to another.

Cyberattacks can shut down systems without warning. Tariffs and customs regulations can change almost overnight. Hurricanes, fires and other events can disrupt facilities, people and transportation. Meanwhile, increasingly digitized logistics operations have made companies more efficient, but also more dependent on the technology that keeps goods moving.

For Susan Kargel, founder of BruteMitigator, and a logistics and customs expert with 40 years of industry experience, this makes business continuity planning increasingly important.

Many companies already have continuity plans. The problem, she says, is that those plans often focus on preparing for an event rather than answering a more difficult question: How will the business actually operate while its normal capabilities are unavailable?