Beyond the Fence: Why Leaders Must Rethink Resilience in 2026

What if the next crisis isn’t the one you’re expecting? 

In late 2021, a major U.S. meat processor was hit with a cyberattack that disrupted operations across multiple facilities. It wasn’t just an IT problem—it rippled into food supply chains, consumer prices, and even international trade conversations. Around the same time, extreme flooding in Europe forced factories offline, causing knock-on effects for global auto and electronics manufacturers already strained by pandemic supply shortages. 

These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re signals of a bigger shift: risks no longer live neatly in separate categories. They collide, cascade, and amplify each other. For executives and resilience professionals, this means the boundaries of “what we need to be ready for” are expanding faster than ever. 

The Issue: Why Interconnected Risks Matter Now 

The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risks Report highlights that interconnected risks—cyberattacks, climate impacts, and geopolitical tensions—are now seen by leaders as systemic multipliers, not single events. Gartner found that 70% of supply chain leaders expect risk interdependencies to increase over the next three years. 

This matters because resilience planning that only considers “single-lane” disruptions is outdated. A ransomware attack may trigger regulatory scrutiny, investor anxiety, and customer trust issues. A hurricane may cut power but also knock out telecoms, paralyze logistics, and create employee safety dilemmas. 

Training and conferences like ICMC help leaders stress-test these overlaps, identify blind spots, and practice decision-making before real-world events force them into the spotlight. 

Beyond the Fence: The Expanding Risk Zone 

Think of resilience like a fence around your organization. A decade ago, the fence covered IT, facilities, and a few critical suppliers. Today, the fence must stretch around cloud vendors, third-party logistics, talent pipelines, social media reputations, and even geopolitical hotspots that may affect your market. 

This is the “expanding risk zone.” 

• More actors: Partners, contractors, and vendors are all potential points of failure. 
• More dependencies: Cloud services, single-source suppliers, and critical infrastructure connections. 
• More interconnections: Digital and physical systems are fused—if one breaks, others follow. 

The risk zone isn’t just wider—it’s more fragile. The further the boundary stretches, the more hidden cracks can form. 

Blind Spots That Hurt the Most 

Here are the blind spots I see organizations stumble on again and again: 

1. Vendor lock-in – A single cloud provider, logistics firm, or manufacturer becomes a single point of failure. 

2. Overlooking “soft” dependencies – Talent shortages, reputation hits, or regulatory responses are often underestimated. 

3. Hidden system interdependencies – IT teams may not realize how one “non-critical” system quietly enables dozens of others. 

4. Leadership assumptions – Executives assume “IT has cyber covered” or “Facilities has storm prep handled,” leaving gaps in cross-functional coordination. 

When ignored, these blind spots turn into accelerants in a crisis. 

A Tale of Two Outcomes 

Failure Case – Maersk and NotPetya 

In 2017, global shipping giant Maersk was hit by the NotPetya ransomware attack. Within minutes, its IT systems were crippled, from email to customs processing. Because interdependencies between digital and physical operations hadn’t been fully stress-tested, cargo piled up in ports, vessels were stranded, and customers faced massive delays. The incident cost Maersk an estimated $300 million and became one of the most cited examples of how a cyberattack can cascade into global supply chain disruption. 

Success Case – Toyota’s Rapid Recovery from Supplier Shutdown 

By contrast, in 2022 Toyota faced a sudden supply chain crisis when a critical supplier suffered a cyberattack that forced it to halt production across 14 Japanese plants. Thanks to pre-developed contingency planning and cross-functional coordination, Toyota was able to restart operations within just a few days. While the disruption was serious, clear communication with partners, rapid risk assessments, and diversified recovery strategies limited long-term damage. Their ability to adapt quickly highlighted how preparation and scenario planning can turn a potential catastrophe into a temporary setback. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid 

Common Mistakes in Resilience Planning 

• Treating cyber, supply chain, and climate risks as separate silos. 
• Skipping vendor resilience assessments. 
• Assuming conference attendance is “nice to have” instead of mission critical. 
• Focusing only on technical systems, not human decision-making. 

What Leaders Ask Most Often 

When I speak with executives or resilience officers, a few questions keep coming up: 

• “Where do we even start?” → Begin with mapping dependencies—critical systems, vendors, and people. 
• “How much training is enough?” → Think frequency, not perfection. Annual cross-functional exercises uncover new blind spots. 
• “Isn’t this too expensive?” → Consider the cost of not preparing: the average cost of a cyber breach is now $4.45M globally (IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report, 2023). 
• “How do we get leadership buy-in?” → Frame resilience as protecting shareholder value, customer trust, and regulatory compliance. 

These conversations don’t happen once—they need to be ongoing. 

Practical Takeaways 

Here are a few steps you can take right now to prepare for the expanding risk zone: 

• Map critical dependencies: Identify where single points of failure exist, both digital and physical. Link them to key elements such as financial and reputational impacts.  
• Run cross-functional exercises: Involve IT, supply chain, communications, and leadership together. 
• Expand your “fence”: Review new areas of exposure annually—vendors, geopolitical risks, reputation. 
• Benchmark with peers: Attend conferences like ICMC to see how others are handling the same challenges. 
• Turn lessons into actions: Every exercise or workshop should end with clear remediation steps. 

The Bottom Line 

Risks no longer come one at a time, and they no longer respect silos. The expanding risk zone demands leaders who can think across systems, anticipate blind spots, and act with speed under pressure. 

ICMC exists for exactly this reason—to give you insights, connections, and practice that keep your organization resilient when risks collide. 

So, what’s your next step? Review the upcoming ICMC agenda, join a session that stretches your thinking, and connect with peers who are facing the same expanding challenges. 

Because when the fence keeps moving, the only way to stay safe inside is to keep expanding your resilience.