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Month: March 2020

What Lies Beneath – Nick Beim in Conversation

Posted on by Harris Allgeier

 

Episode 2: All about AI

This week Jennifer sits down with AI-investor Nick Beim to talk about all things artificial and/or intelligent. Topics of discussion include:

What makes an AI startup compelling to investors?

There’s no denying that AI, as a technology, has been subject to a massive amount of overhype. Nick and Jennifer dig in and discuss how the difference between a company that makes it and a company that breaks it comes down to whether or not they offer a fundamentally new capability, and if they have access to unique data sets.

 

What aspect of AI is underdiscussed?

The popular understanding of AI is riddled with misconceptions, chief among them is the misunderstanding of AI as a superhuman kind of intelligence. Nick and Jennifer discuss that, while we often cannot estimate where a new technology’s upper limit is, our early understanding of what AI can – and should – do is radically different than what human intelligence is capable of.

 

What role does AI play in maintaining US technologial superiority?

Maintaining technological parity with international partners – and competitors – is rarely far from top-of-mind. Nick and jennifer discuss how the United States has capitalized on early AI investment – and what could still be done to ensure our continued parity with countries like China, who have also made significant advancements in the field.

Listen & Subscribe!

To learn more, check out the podcast on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, please rate and review the show, or share it with a friend! New episodes air every other Tuesday.

To learn more about Interos, visit Interos.ai.

 

ISM COVID-19 Survey Highlights Need for Supply Chain Transparency

Posted on by Harris Allgeier

Today, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released a survey assessing the impact of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, on global supply chains. The survey found that roughly 75% of companies have had some supply chain impact resulting from COVID-19, with more than 80% expecting further impacts down the line.

Key findings include:

  • 57% of companies report longer lead times for Chinese components, around twice as long on average
  • Manufacturers in China report operating at 50% capacity
  • Over 44% of respondents do not have a plan to address supply chain disruption from China, and more than half of those companies are already reporting active disruptions.
  • The severity of anticipated impacts increases after Q1 2020
  • 62% of respondents are experiencing delays in orders from China
  • 53% of respondents are having difficulty getting supply chain information from China.
  • Nearly one-half are experiencing delays moving goods within China (48%).
  • Almost one-half (46%) report delays loading goods at Chinese ports.

What does this mean?

It’s further evidence that supply chain transperancy is critical to business continuity and resilience, especially in times of great crisis. Interos has written previously on the need for businesses and organizations to increase their understanding of their supply chains, particularly in regards to China.

Without an understanding of sub-tier relationships, companies’ ability to understand their level of exposure to the ripple effects of the coronavirus is limited, as is their ability to take meaningful action that will hasten much-needed economic and industrial recovery.

Solutions that are reliant on manual supplier discovery and assessment are not able to adequately scale to meet severe, global challenges like COVID-19. Businesses need a solution that can discover their supply chain’s exposure to the coronavirus rapidly, and keep them appraised as the situation changes.

To learn more about how your business can increase resilience and deepen their supply chain awareness immediately, visit our Coronavirus Risk Operations Center.

Announcing: What Lies Beneath – The Third-Party Risk Management Podcast

Posted on by Harris Allgeier

The Podcast All About Risk

We recently launched our brand-new risk management podcast “What Lies Beneath.”

If you want to learn about risk and how to protect your company from it, What Lies Beneath is a great place to start. It features conversations with some of the world’s foremost experts in risk management, across a range of industries and regions.

Learn How to Protect Your Company Through Our Risk Management Podcast

You may think you know who you’re connected to. But do you know who the people you’re connected with are connected with? What about your second, third, or fourth-tier connections?

The truth is, we’re more dependent on one another than ever before. We depend on each other in unexpected and surprising ways that we’ve never before seen. You may be connected with someone that you don’t want to be, solely by association.

That’s where “What Lies Beneath” comes in. There aren’t a lot of third-party risk management podcasts. We’re looking to change that. Interos is a leader in helping organizations manage supply chain risk, and we want to help you learn as much as possible about the risks your company might face in the future. We’ll talk to everyone from CIOs, to the boots-on-the ground- folks who are in the trenches day in and day out.

Every episode, Interos’ CEO, founder, and third-party risk expert Jennifer Bisceglie sits down with a new risk leader to discuss emerging trends, industry issues, and pioneering solutions to the most pressing problems facing risk professionals right now. From child labor to COVID-19, What Lies Beneath will touch on issues that affect businesses around the world.

Insightful Guests Every Week

In our first episode Jennifer was fortunate enought to interivew Mark Weatherford, Booking Holdings’ Global Information Security Strategist, covering topics including supply chain risk management in critical infrastructure, the changing role of the CISO in maanging third party risk, and more!

Subscribe!

To listen to What Lies Beneath check us out and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, please rate and review the show, or share it with a friend! New episodes air every other Tuesday.

To learn more about Interos, visit Interos.ai.

Interos Raises $17.5M to Expand Supply Chain Risk Management Platform

Posted on by Harris Allgeier

 

Venrock Leads Round

The round of funding was led by first-time investor Venrock with participation from Kleiner Perkins, enabling Interos to further invest in its data science and engineering teams to boost sales and capitalize on the company’s strong 2019.

“Interos is one of the most creative, big data-, AI-driven companies I’ve come across in the last five to 10 years,” said Nick Beim, Venrock Partner. “Over the last 20 years, global supply chains have grown so rapidly and with so much opacity that most companies don’t know who they’re working with or who they’re dependent on. There’s just so much data to gather to understand those risks, and Interos has jumped into a significant lead in helping companies understand these urgent, strategic issues with a brand new set of capabilities.”

Company accelerates momentum after strong 2019

2019 was a banner year for Interos and saw a 700% increase in annual recurring revenue and a 693% increase in SaaS bookings. With this latest round of funding, Interos expects to more than double its personnel in 2020, building an even more robust version of their proprietary third-party risk management software, which discovers and visualizes critical supply chain risks for large enterprise businesses and the federal government.

CEO Jennifer Bisceglie highlights company’s successful record

“After a strong 2019, this funding shows Interos has already secured major support in 2020 from the world’s most successful investors,” said Jennifer Bisceglie, CEO and founder of Interos. “Like our customers, investors see the value of the Interos platform, which is critical for global businesses in 2020. From the coronavirus to political unrest, companies need a platform that exposes risks and identifies how events affect suppliers around the world the moment they happen.”

Interos adds Phil Venables to Board of Directors

Interos also recently added Phil Venables, a widely sought-after cybersecurity and risk expert to its board of directors. Mr. Venables’ distinguished career includes previously serving as Goldman Sachs’ first Chief Information Security Officer and Head of Technology Risk, and as their Chief Operational Risk Officer. Prior to his work at Goldman Sachs, Venables was the Chief Information Security Officer at Deutsche Bank. Venables also serves on the Executive Committee of the US Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council for Critical Infrastructure Protection.

 

To learn more about recent Interos funding, read the Press Release. To learn more about Interos, visit Interos.ai.

‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.’

Posted on by Jennifer Bisceglie

February 17th, Apple warned their investors that it will fall short of their guidance due to impacts of the COVID-19 coronavirus on both iPhone manufacturing and overall Apple sales in China.  When a company as massively resourced as Apple brings their supply chain issues to light, the rest of us are best warned to take a look to see how we might be impacted.  Unfortunately, many companies will find themselves looking only at the first tier of their supply chain, the company that they contracted with for goods or services, unable to see whether the companies that their first tier suppliers depend on have extended supply chains in China or other affected countries.

The ugly truth is that the Coronavirus’ brutal world tour is not over yet nor are the supply chain disruptions caused by the virus – this is what Interos calls the Ripple Effect – the proliferation of disruption through the supply chain, from the 3rd, 4th, 5th tiers and beyond. Examples include drug companies reporting (Wall Street Journal) interruptions to their supply chain, and reports of stockpiling by other countries that are part of the US drug supply chain (Modern Healthcare). The ripple effect is not necessarily the first thing companies think about when discussing supply chain interruption, but understanding it is an essential part of minimizing impact and accelerating recovery.

The root of the problem is that – except for our customers, no CEO, chief procurement officer, chief risk officer, chief operating officer knows as much as they need to know both about risks they think are managed or about unmanaged risk in their supply chains.  While many 10k reports attest that adequate supply chain risk management is in place, it takes Coronavirus to make clear that what they think they know “…ain’t so”.

So set your alerts on Interos.  I’ll be posting about 4 short term steps to improve your supply chain risk posture to get ahead of the ‘next’ Coronavirus.

Tomorrow we’ll get started with this 4-part posting focused on ‘Know your suppliers and their supplier and so on, and so on….’

Celebrating International Women’s Day – You Can Be What You Can See

Posted on by Jennifer Bisceglie

Today’s celebration of International Woman’s day is in the forefront of conversation because it is a global celebration by government, NGOs, charities, corporations, academic institutions, women’s networks and media hubs.

For those of you that know me, you have seen my company, Interos, achieve success following 15 years of focus on bringing AI to supply chain (or third party) risk management.  In a world where Carta (2019) reported that ‘only 1 in 3 people in venture-backed companies is a woman, and women are granted less equity on average’, I’ve been in the fortunate position that 2 blue-chip Silicon Valley venture capital firms believed in me enough to invest.  A humbling and inspiring experience.

I’m often asked what made the difference for me to find myself in this growth position.  Two things come to mind: (1) I learned in Year 2 not to be afraid to ask for help and (2) I never lost focus on the purpose of Interos.

Asking for help is often difficult until you start doing it.  I’ve found that people will come out of the woodwork to help if they can.  Which is not to say all your wishes will be answered, just that getting past any negative connotation that you cannot succeed by yourself – and knowing that you REALLY CAN’T succeed by yourself – is both freeing and enabling at the same time.

Another key is purpose – which does not mean the path to get there won’t change.  I can point to five different points in Interos’ history where I had to make a difficult decision to make it to the next milestone.  I predicted 30 years ago that the global economy would rely on a supply chain of interconnected companies and countries around the world, and that would create both risk and incredible opportunity.  The Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) news coverage is riddled with concerns over the supply chain, and Interos has the best market position to help our customers.

I’m proud of the successes and mistakes I’ve been able to make in getting Interos to the market position it now occupies.  Along the way, I’ve had the opportunity to give back to women business owners in the US as Chair of Women Impacting Public Policy and as a part of the global women’s entrepreneurship movement through the Women 20 (W20) engagement group under the G20.

As we celebrate another International Women’s Day and female accomplishments throughout this month, I hope each of you feels empowered to accomplish whatever you want in life.  I believe that you, too, can experience people looking out for you and helping you – you just must find your purpose and believe!

Announcing Interos v2.0

Posted on by Harris Allgeier

 

Brand New Look, Brand New Features

We’ve given the world’s only multi-tier, multi-factor, real-time risk management platform a new user experience, and beefed up the technology powering our risk rating and continuous monitoring functionality. Interos v2.0 gives businesses unparalleled insight into their extended supply chains, discovering the hidden ripple effects of events from around the world as they happen.

What’s New

With Interos v2.0 the following features have been fully implemented in the platform: 

  • Multi-Tier, Multi-Factor Risk Scoring: A comprehensive, summary view of your entire ecosystem with scoring along five key risk factors, providing rich insight at a glance.
  • High Risk Outlier Detection: Machine learning parses 85,000 data sources and provides a continuously updated view of your highest risk suppliers with customized alerts for risk events, enabling truly continuous risk monitoring.
  • Advanced Visualization: See your ecosystem how you want with a risk scorecard, network, hierarchy and geospatial views.
  • Multi-Facet Filtering: Filter suppliers by country, risk factor, industry and tier.
  • Detailed Risk Insights: See individual company risk profiles with detailed summaries of risk-relevant information backing up risk scores.

 Check out the new look:

To learn more about Interos v 2.0 please see our press release or request a demo.

Share your details and we’ll be in touch to show you how Interos is shaking up third party risk.

Synopsis: Sheffi Bloomberg Interview

Posted on by Cheryl Haas

Photo by sarayut from Getty Images Pro

Recently, Yossi Sheffi, Director of the Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), appeared on Bloomberg TV to discuss his views on the impact of coronavirus on global supply chains. Mr. Sheffi primarily focused his analysis on three topics: the bullwhip effect, supplier and customer evaluations, and business contingency planning.

At the beginning of the segment, Mr. Sheffi is asked about how coronavirus will impact companies’ inventories. In response, he references a supply chain phenomenon known as the bullwhip effect. Bullwhip effect is the increasing variation in demand as a supply chain disruption makes its way up a supply chain.

According to this analysis, Mr. Sheffi views small and medium sized upstream suppliers as being the most vulnerable to supply chain disruption because they are unable to take the hit of declining orders for an extended period.

As suppliers and customers alike will be impacted by rapidly decreasing demand, Mr. Sheffi recommends business evaluate both upstream and downstream to discover points of vulnerability. He advocates larger business partner and potentially even take a financial interest in their critical suppliers that do not have the financial resiliency to survive a long-term disruption in demand.

Finally, Mr. Sheffi concludes by discussing what options organizations have with regards to business contingency planning. Although it may be too late for companies to find alternative suppliers or stockpile critical components, there is still time for boards to discuss how they will handle potential outbreaks in areas where they maintain operations. The health and safety of employees is paramount to the survival of a business and developing a plan of action before it is needed will promote level-headed and practical thinking rather than rashness and panicking.