Business Continuity Planning for Supply Chain Managers Training Course

Course overview

Supply chain managers are expected to protect service levels when a critical supplier fails, a transport route closes, a warehouse becomes inaccessible, or a health, safety or environmental incident interrupts operations. Yet many continuity plans remain generic documents that do not identify single-source dependencies, realistic recovery times, decision authorities or alternate fulfilment options. This course equips managers to turn operational risk information into a tested continuity capability for sourcing, logistics, inventory and customer delivery.

Participants learn to conduct a supply-chain-focused business impact analysis (BIA), map tiered supplier and logistics dependencies, set recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs), and assess disruption scenarios using likelihood, consequence and control effectiveness. The course covers supplier continuity requirements, alternate-source qualification, inventory and capacity buffers, crisis decision structures, communications protocols, and post-incident recovery. Participants use ISO 22301 and ISO 31000 principles to build plans that connect business continuity, HSE incident management, procurement and operational resilience.

Teaching combines instructor-led technical sessions with supply disruption cases, facilitated planning workshops and spreadsheet-based analysis. Participants work through a scenario involving a hazardous-materials transport interruption and a critical supplier outage, then develop a practical continuity pack for a selected supply chain or product family. The pack includes a BIA worksheet, dependency map, prioritised continuity strategies, incident escalation matrix, supplier information requirements and a tabletop exercise plan ready for workplace adaptation.

The course is best suited to experienced supply chain, procurement, logistics and operations professionals who contribute to continuity planning or must coordinate recovery during disruptive events.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Conduct a supply-chain business impact analysis using process criticality, maximum tolerable period of disruption and recovery time objectives
• Map tier-1 and tier-2 supplier, transport, warehouse and utility dependencies in a supply chain dependency map
• Assess disruption scenarios using an ISO 31000-aligned likelihood, consequence and control effectiveness matrix
• Set recovery priorities and continuity strategies for sourcing, inventory, production capacity and customer fulfilment
• Draft supplier business continuity requirements and evidence requests for supplier qualification and review
• Build an incident escalation matrix with decision thresholds, roles, communication routes and contact ownership
• Design a supply chain tabletop exercise that tests a supplier outage or logistics disruption scenario
• Produce an actionable business continuity plan pack for a defined product family, site or supply network

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Supply Chain Managers — who must maintain supply and customer service through supplier, transport and site disruptions
• Procurement Managers — who need to embed continuity requirements into supplier selection, contracts and reviews
• Logistics and Distribution Managers — who must recover transport, warehouse and delivery operations after interruptions
• Operations Managers — who depend on reliable material availability, capacity recovery and escalation decisions
• Supplier Relationship Managers — who need to evaluate supplier resilience evidence and coordinate corrective actions
• Business Continuity Coordinators — who need to translate enterprise continuity requirements into operational supply chain plans

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical familiarity with their organisation’s supply chain, including key suppliers, procurement processes, inventory flows, logistics routes or production dependencies. Experience reading basic risk registers, supplier performance data and operational KPIs is helpful. Participants should be comfortable working with spreadsheets and discussing realistic disruption scenarios with colleagues. Prior certification in business continuity, risk management or HSE is not required, and no specialist modelling software experience is assumed. The course explains ISO 22301, ISO 31000, BIA terminology, RTOs and continuity-planning methods before participants apply them.

Training methodology

The instructor uses short technical briefings to introduce continuity standards and methods, followed by guided application to a realistic multi-tier supply disruption case. Participants build BIA entries, dependency maps, risk assessments and recovery strategies in working groups, testing assumptions against supplier, inventory, transport and HSE constraints. Facilitated tabletop discussions require participants to make escalation, allocation and communications decisions under changing conditions. Each participant receives structured templates and ends the week by adapting the course outputs into an application plan for their own supply network.

Course outline

Day 1: Supply Chain Continuity Foundations

• Business continuity management system principles under ISO 22301:2019
• Supply chain disruption categories including HSE, supplier, logistics and infrastructure events
• Critical product and service identification
• Maximum tolerable period of disruption and recovery time objectives
• Supply chain process mapping from demand signal to customer delivery
• Continuity governance, accountabilities and decision rights
• Interface between incident management, emergency response and business continuity

Workshop: Participants map one selected product or service flow and identify its critical operational handoffs, owners and disruption points.

Day 2: Business Impact and Dependency Analysis

• Business impact analysis scope and data-collection design
• Process criticality scoring for revenue, safety, regulatory and customer impacts
• Tiered supplier dependency mapping
• Single-source and sole-route vulnerability identification
• Warehouse, port, utility and digital-system dependency analysis
• Inventory coverage, safety stock and lead-time exposure calculations
• Recovery time objective validation with operational stakeholders

Workshop: Participants complete a BIA worksheet and dependency map for a critical supply chain segment, including proposed RTOs.

Day 3: Risk Assessment and Continuity Strategies

• ISO 31000:2018 risk assessment process
• Scenario-based likelihood and consequence evaluation
• Control effectiveness and residual-risk assessment
• Alternate supplier qualification and dual-sourcing strategies
• Strategic inventory, capacity reservation and substitution options
• Transport rerouting and alternate distribution-node planning
• Cost, feasibility and recovery-time comparison of continuity options

Workshop: Teams assess a critical supplier failure scenario and prepare a prioritised recovery strategy decision paper.

Day 4: Response Coordination and Supplier Assurance

• Supply chain incident activation criteria and escalation thresholds
• Crisis roles using RACI and decision-authority matrices
• Supplier continuity questionnaires and evidence requirements
• Continuity clauses for supplier contracts and service-level agreements
• Stakeholder communications for customers, regulators and internal functions
• Allocation rules for constrained inventory and customer prioritisation
• Post-incident review, corrective action and plan-maintenance cycles

Workshop: Participants build an escalation matrix and supplier assurance checklist for a disruption affecting a critical material.

Day 5: Testing and Workplace Application

• Tabletop exercise objectives, scope and inject design
• Testing supplier notification and alternate-source mobilisation
• Measuring response times and recovery performance
• Capturing decisions, gaps and improvement actions
• Business continuity plan structure and document control
• Dashboard reporting of supply continuity indicators in Microsoft Power BI
• Ninety-day continuity implementation roadmap

Workshop: Participants run a facilitated tabletop exercise and finalise a continuity plan pack and 90-day implementation roadmap for their workplace.

Tools & standards covered

ISO 22301:2019, ISO 31000:2018, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions