@Risk

Last month, federal officials cracked down on West Coast shop owners who allegedly sell counterfeit merchandise.

In one of the largest federal enforcement actions ever taken against West Coast retailers suspected of selling counterfeit designer apparel and accessories, the authorities seized approximately $100 million worth of counterfeit merchandise and charged the owners, operators and employees of eight shops in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf district with a 25-count indictment.

According to a press release, the designer fakes, which were illegally imported from China, included clothing, handbags and wallets, jewelry and watches, scarves, sunglasses and shoes –all bearing the labels of more than 70 well-known designer brands. Among the brands were a number of US-based companies like Oakley, Dooney and Bourke, Nike, Coach and Kate Spade, and foreign designers such as Armani, Burberry, Prada and Louis Vuitton. Affidavits filed in connection with the case describe multiple instances where clerks at the targeted stores acknowledged to ICE undercover agents posing as customers that the merchandise they were buying was counterfeit. (more…)

Here’s a remarkable statistic: Among the more than 900 electronic records breaches that Verizon Business experts investigated last year, a whopping 96 percent could have been avoided if security basics had been followed.

That’s right. Nearly all of these breaches could have been avoided; only 4 percent of the breaches analyzed required difficult and expensive protective measures. In addition, most victimized organizations (87 percent) had evidence of a breach in their security logs, but overlooked these red flags due to a lack of staff, tools or processes.

The new 2010 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report , which for the first time was prepared in collaboration with the US Secret Service, is filled with other fascinating results, too –all of which offer some important perspective about the vulnerability of business data and the most effective approaches for mitigating cybercrime threats.  For instance, the report also reveals that: (more…)

Today’s supply chains are global, elongated and enormously complex.

Of course, that also means they’re riskier and more unpredictable than ever before.

How can supply chain managers maintain integrity, stability and clarity in what can easily become a nasty hornet’s nest? And now that many suppliers feel far-removed from their customers, how can you mitigate the risk of irresponsible suppliers –you know, the ones that put their own interests above yours?

Answers to questions like those are almost as complex as supply chains themselves, but Mark Vandenbosch and Stephen Sapp do a nice job breaking down the key issues in their article, Keep Your Suppliers Honest, published last week in The Wall Street Journal. According to the authors, mitigating risks from irresponsible suppliers boils down to four fundamental tasks.

In short, you need to: (more…)

Mexico continues to be a positive business proposition for many companies. However there’s no doubt that it is becoming increasingly more challenging –and more costly –to mitigate risks to operations, supply chains and personnel there.

Consider this: Since 2006, more than 24,000 people have been killed in drug violence in Mexico, and as an article in The Dallas Morning News puts it: (more…)

Counterfeiters continue to infiltrate the global pharmaceutical supply chain, and increasingly now thay appear to be targeting high-value drugs, such as HIV antivirals and cancer treatments, according to FiercePharmaManufacturing.

In fact, in Germany, dozens of pharmacies are currently under investigation for suspected distribution of illegal and fake drugs, including painkillers, antibiotics and cancer treatments, as well as so-called “lifestyle medicines,” such as impotency drugs and bodybuilding products. This high-profile case seems especially troubling because, among other things, the pharmacists are alleged to have mixed illegally-acquired medicines with genuine product. (more…)