Supply Chain Digital Magazine June 2024 | Page 109

Use more image captions as often as possible that when it comes to military technology and equipment , there is an adversarial threat , because the enemy will always look to your military supply chains .”
Theresa says the avoidance of disruption is where her intelligence skills came into play : “ You have to discover if a technology has been compromised , or if it ’ s counterfeit . You have to slow down the acquisition process just enough to make it secure , because if you don ’ t then you might end up sending compromised equipment to the front line , or you could inadvertently expose a sensitive military-technology supply chain to an economic competitor .”
Theresa feels things are not so different in the commercial world , where averting threats is every bit as important in supply chains as ensuring compliance .
She says : “ In the commercial world you have sensitive intellectual property and proprietary information , and economic competitors will exploit the complex nature of the supply chains by inserting things that will hurt the competition . So being able to map the full supply chain – to have transparency across its complete surface – means you can gain a potentially decisive advantage .”
Theresa stresses that an economic competitor might seek to disrupt a key supply chain by targeting its soft underbelly : the software supply chain .
“ Take military technology ,” she says , “ such as a fighter jet like the F35 , or maybe a big military platform , or a weapons system . An economic competitor has no need to infiltrate a military base to compromise supply chain security .”
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