How a value chain approach helps us to “˜join the dots’?

Savina Carluccio explores what we mean by resilience value, and how we are using value chains to connect the concepts of resilience and value.

We define the critical functions of infrastructure as the ability to sustain societal needs through protecting, connecting and/or providing essential services. Ensuring that these are delivered and maintained in ordinary as well as extraordinary circumstances is what we define as resilience value.

One of the biggest challenges for critical infrastructure is breaking down the silos between infrastructure providers and customers along the supply chain so that everyone is focused on delivering resilience value where they can.

At the Resilience Shift, we have found that a value chain is extremely useful for connecting the concepts of resilience and value in a context that will be familiar to everyone working on the design, delivery, operation of infrastructure systems.

This concept of “joining the dots” helps articulate the contribution of all parties in delivering the overall function and value of infrastructure systems, and also helps align stakeholders behind a common outcome.

Above all it helps us to:

• Articulate WHY it is important that resilience value is created, enabled and protected at each stage and carried through the value chain because the resilience increases the value of the service provided, by reducing the impact of disruptions.
• Show HOW to “˜do’ resilience by mapping tools and approaches that can be used to enhance resilience at different parts of the value chain and at a level of sophistication appropriate for stakeholder role.
• Indicate WHERE the entry points and opportunities to create, enable and protect resilience value are for different stakeholders in the value chain and explain how they are connected.

Find out more about how we are using a value chain approach in our  work on resilience tools and approaches.