Sustainability in a given business refers to the situation or the scenario whereby a business will continue to survive no matter what the business environment changes too. It means the particular business will continue with its operations as usual even if the situation becomes worse. This necessitates the particular business to be very flexible in terms of its business operations. The particular business must be in a position of embracing business processes and operations that fit particular situations. That way, it will be very easy for a particular business to be sustainable in the given market.

For each of the risks listed, explain how the risk affects process improvement sustainability.

There exists a risk of the supply chain. Any company with serious business processes often have the department of supply chain management. Procurement is always done in the department of supply chain management. It is at the procurement stage that there is always a tendency to involving some risks(Prawitt, 2019). These risks can immensely affect the process improvement sustainability. As the particular business will be yearning to improve its business processes to be on the safer page of the competition and the general survival tactics in the market, the risks involved in the procurement processes will derail the process. The risk involved here include; breaches to the company’s assets as well as the right of intellectual property, compromising of labor rights as well as human rights, risks to occupational safety and health as well as environmental damage. As much as the particular business will be striving to be in a better place in terms of competition in the market and be in a good position of offering its services or goods or products, the mentioned risks involved in the process of procurement will act as a stumbling block to the luminous future of the given business.

The other risk is climate-related one. The change in climate can greatly have a negative impact on a particular cost. It is capable of making a particular business to change its ways of operating as well as increasing the costs of running the business. Furthermore, climate change makes it possible for the given business to derive more policies and regulations for its governance(Prawitt, 2019). When new policies are created in a company or organization, the existing business processes tend to be much affected. It is because new policies or regulations often change the ways operations are conducted or executed. This may either increase or decrease the rate at which products, goods, or services are produced. If the rate of production increases, then the business is said to be in a better place of competing with others and be in a better position of surviving in the market. On the other hand, if the rate of production decreases, then the business will not be in a better place anymore. In such a situation, it is in a bad state and will be operating at a loss. In such a situation, intervention is required to be taken with immediate effect so that it does not undergo much loss, something that can contribute to its closure.

Another risk involved in the change in the physical environment. For instance, given that a given company or factory that depends on raw materials from a given locality. The particular raw materials only thrive in cool and wet climatic conditions. Then, unfortunately, the climatic conditions of the particular locality suddenly change to a hot and dry one due to a continued drought. This will imply that the particular crop will no longer yield from the region. The climatic condition will not allow it to thrive any longer. This means that the particular company or factory will lack the raw materials for its processes. This is a very severe problem which can even make the company to be closed as there will be no any productive activity that will be going on by a particular company(Prawitt, 2019). On the other hand, if the particular climatic condition of the region continued to be cool and wet, it means that the particular crop will continue to thrive very well, something that will increase its production. If the production increases, it means there will be an increased production of the raw material. When the raw materials are supplied in that manner, it means the business will be thriving well in that scenario.

Thinking about your process improvement project, how could you have incorporated the idea of sustainability earlier in the project?

Improvement of processes of a business is something that has some worth for the entire survival of the business. For any business or company, it is better for it to critically think of its future in terms of sustainability before it embarks on making some risks in its operations. That is very important because it determines the path or the future of a particular company or business.

Before anything is implemented in the process of executing a company’s processes, there have to be some measures that are carried out by the main stakeholders of the given company or organization. This is to make sure that only those business processes and activities that are likely to be of great benefit to the company are implemented. That means that there will be high chances of having that particular implemented policy be of great benefit to the company or the organization. This means that the business process will be more sustainable no matter what business climatic condition arises. On the other hand, in cases whereby the business process will prove uncertainty in the future, then they have to be done away with because they will be in a very high position of contributing to the failure of the business. That is why before any business process gets implemented by a company or organization, it has to undergo a serious scrutinization.

How would you handle a situation where key stakeholders don’t support the activities needed to sustain the process improvements that were implemented?

In any project or business activity, there will always exist two types of stakeholders. Active and passive stakeholders. Active are the ones who are concerned with what takes place in the project regularly. They take active roles in the project. On the other hand, passive stakeholders are the ones who take a passive role in the project. They are less concerned about the progress of a particular project at hand. Active stakeholders are therefore a very important aspect of a business or a project. If they are very reluctant in supporting the activities that are necessary for sustaining a project or business improvement, they should be reminded that they are the backbones of the business or the project. The whole project depends on them. If they support those activities then the business will flourish. On the other hand, if they do not support it, the business will fail, and their initial invested money or capital will go at a loss.