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Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries like Poland face a threat to future prosperity — brain drain, especially in the area of logistics and supply chains, one of the key drivers of economic development in the region. As supply chains increasingly span the globe and compete on a greater scale, many firms have taken advantage of CEE supply markets. Global companies like Volkswagen and Amazon have established facilities in Poland, leveraging proximity to economic networks and highly skilled, cost-efficient labour. This trend has necessitated improvements in infrastructure over the last decade, yet significant improvements in business education and management research have not materialized. Simply put, the ties between higher-education institutions and the private sector in CEE nations must be strengthened. <br><br> Industrial firms, retailers, and third-party logistics providers — along with supply chain consultancies, after-sales service providers and IT solution providers — all benefit from the availability of professionals equipped with the latest knowledge, methods, and tools. But while these things are taught in logistics and supply chain management (SCM) courses at top universities elsewhere, there is much to be desired in management education in CEE nations. Investors and researchers from the international business community should be aware of the region’s growing market for logistics and SCM. Private-sector firms should consider making investments in thought leadership when outsourcing to CEE countries. Ensuring that the region’s next generations of researchers can work at home instead of having to spend their whole careers abroad would go a long way toward sustaining economic growth.

The increasing reliance on data-based knowledge is rapidly changing how business is done. But the current discussion tends to neglect the often poor quality of insights won through the use of data warehouses by firms that have often not adequately maintained their data storage solutions. This article focuses on the problems generated by proliferated data systems and their impact on decision making in large, complex financial services institutions. Factors that lead to the emergence of systems disparity include: 1. Product and Service Diversity: Any large organization is in fact an umbrella covering many internal businesses that have been aligned to specific markets. 2. Back Office/Front Office Division. 3. Technology Advance: New systems are rarely built on the same platform as previous systems. 4. Natural Development. 5. Geography. 6. Expediency: The most expedient system solution is often implemented instead of the optimum architectural solution, which may take longer and represent opportunity risk. 7. Budgeting and Downsizing. Ultimately, failure at any point adversely affects the chain of events at all stages beyond the point of failure. In a disparate environment, the number of dependencies is greater than the number of disparate systems; and the greater the degree of divergence, the greater the operational risk to the enterprise.

Globalization has created new opportunities and new threats. As sourcing from around the world has made supply chains longer and more complex, the volatility inherent in production has significantly increased. The average risk management process begins by creating basic awareness, and the use of heat maps (two-dimensional representations of scenarios and consequences) is widespread. However, many dimensions can be at play and the consequences of oversimplification can be devastating. Hazardous events can strike several firms simultaneously, and two forms of dependencies can be distinguished: 1) structural within industries and 2) events that hit groups of firms independently or all at the same time. This article traces the development of a useful heuristic in which a network model was progressively refined to depict interconnected activity in an industrial system over time. The authors show that it is not sufficient to look at individual profiles of disruptions, because they may come in “multi-packs.” Furthermore, backup suppliers do not necessarily mitigate single-source risk. Although a model is never the “answer” to a manager’s problem, even those with limited access to data will find that sources like iSuppli are affordable and adequate for analysis. Finally, managers should not look at businesses separately, but rather develop an enterprise-wide view of the total risk exposure.