Skip to main content
Marsh logo

Report

Leading with resilience: How Canadian manufacturers can manage risk and build long-term stability

Download now

Canadian manufacturers face unprecedented complexity — extreme weather, cyber threats, fragile supply chains, and a widening labour gap. Download this guide to get data-driven strategies across five critical risk areas to help you protect operations and emerge stronger.

What's inside this manufacturer’s resilience guide?

Manufacturers today face a converging set of risks that demand more than reactive management — they require embedded, organization-wide resilience. This report delivers actionable strategies across five critical risk areas every manufacturer needs to address. You’ll learn how to better protect property and production from fire, equipment failure, and climate-related disruptions; build cyber resilience in OT/IT environments increasingly exposed to targeted and wide-area attacks; adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts on infrastructure, water supply, and workforce safety; secure manufacturing supply chains against geopolitical shifts, supplier concentration risk, and logistics disruptions; and develop people-first production lines that attract, retain, and upskill the workforce powering modern manufacturing. 

Leading with resilience: The modern manufacturer's imperative

Learn how Canadian manufacturers can manage risk and build long-term stability.

Download the full guide

Whether you're managing a single facility or a global operation, this guide equips manufacturing leaders with the frameworks, risk engineering measures, and forward-thinking strategies needed to turn operational risk into competitive advantage.

65%

of organizations have a hidden supply chain single point of failure, according to Marsh data.

1.7 million

manufacturing jobs projected unfilled in Canada by 2030, according to the 2025 CME report.

74%

of organizations have suffered losses from extreme weather, according to Marsh’s 2025 Climate Adaptation Survey.

Resilience has never been more essential.

Manufacturing shapes the world as we know it — from everyday consumer products to industrial equipment and critical infrastructure. That scale is a strength, but it also broadens the surface of exposure across operational, environmental, technological, and human risks. Today's landscape is shifting faster than ever, and true leadership means embedding resilience into the very fabric of your organization.

Five critical risk categories demanding your attention

The guide examines the five interconnected risk domains that every Canadian manufacturer must address — with actionable strategies for each.
selected option

Protecting property and production

Fire remains a leading hazard — but it's only one dimension of property risk. From lithium-ion battery fires to extreme weather damage, manufacturers must address the full spectrum of physical asset exposure and business interruption risk across their portfolio.

Learn more here.

Building cyber resilience

As IT and OT systems converge, the cyberattack surface expands dramatically. Legacy Programmable logic controllers (PLCs), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, and industrial control networks that were once isolated are now connected to cloud platforms and third-party vendors. Cyber resilience must be a core operational discipline, not an IT add-on.

Learn more here.

Adapting to climate change

Extreme weather is the third most significant global risk for 2026. Manufacturers face physical risks — flooding, wildfires, temperature extremes — alongside transition risks from evolving regulations, carbon pricing, and investor scrutiny of climate disclosures.

Learn more here.

Securing supply chains

North American manufacturing employs 23 million people and generates over USD$1.5 trillion in annual trade. Yet only 5% of organizations have a comprehensive supply chain resilience strategy in place, while 65% have a critical single point of failure hidden in their network.

Learn more here.

Developing people-first production lines

An estimated 1.7 million manufacturing jobs are projected to go unfilled in Canada by 2030. Compounded by skills mismatches from automation and AI adoption, psychosocial risks, and an aging workforce, the talent challenge is both urgent and complex.

Learn more here.

Build resilience. Protect what you've built.

Download Leading with resilience: The modern manufacturer's imperative — Marsh Canada's comprehensive guide to navigating the risk landscape facing Canadian manufacturers. Get ready to act today.

Download for free

Learn practical risk insights to act on sooner

Each section of the guide moves beyond detailing risks to delivering concrete strategies Canadian manufacturing leaders can implement to build lasting resilience.

Five strategies for mitigating property risk: Site diversification, robust business continuity planning, contract manufacturing, strategic inventory management, and employee training — with real-world scenarios illustrating each approach.

A cyber resilience framework for manufacturing: 12 foundational cyber controls spanning MFA, EDR, OT-specific incident response, and digital supply chain risk management — tailored to both IT and operational technology environments.

Physical climate risk modelling for your asset portfolio: How to use downscaled climate projections and scenario analysis to pinpoint vulnerable assets, develop adaptation strategies, and integrate climate resilience into capital planning.

Supply chain visibility and concentration risk assessment: Leveraging advanced platforms like Marsh's Sentrisk™ to identify hidden supplier concentration, geopolitical exposure, and real-time disruption signals before they cascade into production halts.

People-first approaches to workforce resilience: Strategies for attracting younger talent, bridging the digital skills gap, managing psychosocial risks, and building a culture of safety and psychological wellbeing on the plant floor.

What manufacturers are frequently asking

The guide addresses the most pressing resilience questions facing Canadian manufacturing leaders today, including:

Manufacturing resilience is the capacity to anticipate disruptions before they arise, adapt with agility when they do, and emerge stronger on the other side. Rather than treating risk management as a reactive safeguard, truly resilient organizations embed it into strategy, operations, and culture — across property, cyber, climate, supply chain, and people risks. By treating resilience as a capability to be measured, practiced, and scaled, manufacturers can protect their people, assets, and processes while driving long-term, sustainable performance.

Canadian manufacturers face five critical and interconnected risk categories: property risks (fire, equipment failure, business interruption); cyber threats to increasingly connected operational technology systems; physical and transition risks from climate change; supply chain vulnerabilities — with Marsh data showing 65% of organizations have at least one critical single point of failure — and people risks, including a projected 1.7 million unfilled manufacturing jobs in Canada by 2030. The 2026 Global Risks Report ranks extreme weather as the third most significant risk expected to cause a material crisis globally.

The cyberattacks dominating the headlines today are largely insurable. In those cases where companies bought insurance, coverage responded and claims were paid.

While terms and conditions can vary, a cyber insurance policy can include comprehensive coverage in advance of, during, and after a ransomware attack. It may cover, but is not limited to, incident response planning, breach notification services, and restoration and repair.

Manufacturing faces four primary threat categories: targeted attacks exploiting OT system vulnerabilities; untargeted wide-area attacks scanning for exposed legacy systems; supply chain and third-party attacks from vendors with network access; and accidental threats from human error or misconfiguration. As IT and OT systems converge — connecting PLCs, SCADA, and HMIs to cloud platforms — cyber incidents can trigger production shutdowns, safety hazards, equipment damage, regulatory action, and significant financial losses. Cyber resilience must be treated as a core operational discipline, not an IT add-on.

The talent shortage in Canadian manufacturing is severe and accelerating. A 2025 Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) report projects approximately 22,500 workers will retire per year in Ontario alone through 2033. Over 75% of Canadian manufacturers already have difficulty finding qualified workers, and an estimated 1.7 million manufacturing jobs are projected to remain unfilled across Canada by 2030 if current trends persist. Compounding the challenge: only 32% of Canadians aged 16 to 30 would consider a career in manufacturing (Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte, 2025), and rapid adoption of automation and AI is widening the digital skills gap.

Climate change creates both physical and transition risks for Canadian manufacturers. Physical risks include facility and infrastructure damage from extreme weather (flooding, convective storms, wildfires); supply chain disruption as damaged roads, railways, and ports restrict material and product flows; water scarcity affecting cooling, cleaning, and processing operations; and heat-related safety and productivity challenges for outdoor and non-air-conditioned workforces. Transition risks include stricter emissions regulations and carbon pricing, evolving investor and insurer climate disclosure requirements, and reputational risk from perceived environmental harm. According to Marsh's 2025 Climate Adaptation Survey, 74% of risk managers have already experienced losses from extreme weather events.

Yes. While manufacturing is a diverse sector — spanning food and beverage, automotive, heavy industry, electronics, chemicals, EV batteries, and defence — the five risk categories covered in the guide apply across the spectrum. Each chapter acknowledges the diversity of manufacturing exposures and provides frameworks adaptable to your specific operational model, asset profile, and supply chain complexity. The guide is designed for risk managers, plant leaders, CFOs, and executive teams across Canadian manufacturing industries.

Protect what you've built — build long-term resilience

Download Leading with resilience: The modern manufacturer's imperative — Marsh Canada's comprehensive guide to navigating the risk landscape facing Canadian manufacturers. Download below and get ready to act today.