Half of global chief executives said their businesses could not run beyond three weeks if a major supply chain shock hit, new research found.
A report from procurement and supply chain consultancy Proxima found 51 per cent of CEOs said their business would experience some form of disruption within three weeks if a major supply chain shock occurred.
The Global Supply Chain Resilience Outlook surveyed more than 500 chief executives at businesses generating over $500 million (£374.4 million) in annual revenue across the UK, US, Australia, Singapore and Germany.
It found 72 per cent of CEOs would accept a more than 10 per cent increase in third-party supplier costs to guarantee supply chain resilience.
The mean uplift that chief executives said they would accept was 17.3 per cent.
However, 38 per cent said they would fund higher supplier costs through cost savings, while 35 per cent said they would pass price rises on to customers. A further 26 per cent said they would absorb the cost through lower margins.
The report also found 56 per cent of CEOs said disruption to their top three suppliers for two weeks would put 11 per cent to 20 per cent of revenue at risk, while 24 per cent said 21 per cent to 40 per cent of revenue could be exposed.
Cyber risk was also flagged as a major pressure point, with 45 per cent of businesses having experienced supply chain disruption caused by a cyber incident in the past 24 months.
However, only 35 per cent said they had real-time visibility into cyber risk among critical suppliers.
More than half of CEOs, 51 per cent, said AI was delivering measurable value in supplier risk monitoring, although barriers to further adoption included data quality, lack of skills and uncertainty over return on investment.
Proxima executive vice president Simon Geale said: “It is no secret that businesses are navigating a period of intense supply chain uncertainty.
“This research shows that CEOs are still very alert to disruption risk and that they are placing an increasing emphasis on building sustainable supply chain resilience.”
He added: “Resilience has become a boardroom topic and a price worth paying.”
The report found CEOs were facing a broad range of supply chain threats, including conflict and geopolitical tensions, emerging technologies, sustainability targets, regulatory requirements, climate change, extreme weather and protectionist policies such as tariffs.
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