Five Warning Signs Your Supply Chain Is in Polycrisis Mode

Polycrisis is about interaction, not accumulation. Several small stresses reinforce each other and create non-linear effects. They move across your physical, informational, financial and reputational pathways. Lists miss these links. Maps reveal them and show where to act with effect.

Big idea: stop cataloguing incidents. Model how stresses become triggers and propagate as crises.

The five warning signs

1) The risk register keeps growing, yet decisions do not change

You hold a long list of threats. You colour the heat-map. You add owners. Operations carry on unchanged.

What it means: the organisation tracks nodes and ignores flows. You are not making hypotheses about how trouble travels.

Quick test: ask for a one-page map for any top risk. If you cannot see arrows, triggers and switches, you are in list mode.

First fix: sketch the stress, name the trigger, then trace one hop per pathway. Use one verb per arrow.

2) Incidents repeat one hop downstream

You fix a port delay. Costs return via premium air freight. You stop a cyber alert. Forecast error rises next cycle. The label changes. The mechanism does not.

What it means: teams treat symptoms, not propagation. Each function optimises locally and pushes cost to the next link.

Quick test: pull the last five incidents. Mark the next team touched within seven days. If three or more repeat, you have a propagation gap.

First fix: for every incident close, add a “next hop” note. Capture the pathway, the owner and one prevention switch.

3) Decision latency rises as manual patches spread

Meetings multiply. Slack threads explode. Spreadsheets appear. People build workarounds while waiting for approvals.

What it means: the system lacks pre-authorised options. Authority and information do not meet in time. Latency grows at each hand-off.

Quick test: measure the time from signal to decision to action for the last disruption. If the middle step dominates, you have a switch problem.

First fix: write three switches you can execute inside 48 hours. Tie each to a trigger and pathway. Pre-approve scope and spend.

4) Finance and operations tell different stories

Service improves while cash worsens. Or the reverse. Expedited freight costs show up two weeks after the fix. A distributor extends terms without warning.

What it means: you are missing the financial pathway on the map. Operational recovery masks liquidity and margin aftershocks.

Quick test: take your last disruption. Ask treasury for the cash view by week. If it surprises operations, add the pathway to the map.

First fix: add two triggers with cash effects. Examples: aged receivables breach threshold days. Expedited freight costs exceed a % threshold of move cost.

5) Playbooks exist, but there are no switches

You have a binder of steps. You do not have specific moves tied to thresholds. Escalation becomes a default answer.

What it means: playbooks describe activity, not choice. They lack the link from trigger to decision to pre-cleared option.

Quick test: pick one scenario. Point to the line that says “If X crosses Y for Z hours, do A, owned by B.” If you cannot, you have a playbook gap.

First fix: convert steps into switches. Name the trigger, the option and the owner. Add a simple evidence check to avoid false positives.

Why these signs appear together

Polycrisis couples systems. Physical capacity depends on information quality. Information quality shapes cash. Cash shapes supplier behaviour. Reputation quietly shapes policy and access. When you treat items as independent, the system punishes you. The penalties arrive later and elsewhere. That is why registers grow while outcomes stall.

Mini-case: one small trigger, wide effects

A canal delay adds six days to eastbound transit. The physical pathway pushes containers past delivery windows. The informational pathway creates ETA gaps and duplicate bookings. The financial pathway lifts premium transport and squeezes cash buffers. The reputational pathway surfaces missed shelf dates for a key account.

The list says “transit disruption.”

The map says “raise the cut-over threshold for air on SKUs A and B, trigger at day four, owner transport. Send a clean ETA message to planning within two hours. Issue a temporary allocation rule for top customers.” Decision time drops. The blast radius shrinks. You avoid paying twice.

What this means for operators

• Model the flow. Trace stress to trigger to crisis across each pathway.
• Fund switches. Build option value with pre-authorised moves.
• Track latency. Measure signal to decision to action. Compress it every quarter.
• Standardise language. Use STC, pathways and E×C across teams.

Book a 30-minute discovery call and we will outline a pilot that fits your network, partners and governance.