According to a poll conducted by CIPS, 45 per cent of buyers have no plan B that “stretches down the tiers of their supply chain” if plan A fails, Supply Management has reported.

Meanwhile less than a third of buyers had a back-up strategy in place, while a fifth of those surveyed had no idea whether they had a plan B or not.

CIPS’s group CEO David Noble said buyers “cannot outsource accountability and responsibility for the conditions in which these goods are produced and where raw materials are sourced.

“Best practice requires a thorough understanding by companies of who their suppliers are. Many procurement professionals will be confident they have this understanding, but this knowledge is incomplete.”

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