REPORT
As global trade navigates an increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape, businesses are being forced to rethink how they build resilience into their supply chains.
The escalation of conflict in the Red Sea, driven by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, has rapidly evolved from a regional flashpoint into a global supply chain emergency. With container ships under attack, ports on alert and critical chokepoints compromised, organizations across multiple industries are already experiencing the consequences: delivery delays, rising costs and operational disruption.
At Sigma7, we support clients with end-to-end supply chain risk management, intelligence-led resilience strategies and crisis management planning. During onboarding, our team uses an Intelligence Collection Plan (ICP) to understand your operational goals and map your critical assets and routes. This ensures your intelligence feeds are aligned with the most important elements of your supply chain.
As a new kind of global risk information and services platform, Sigma7 helps organisations assess, mitigate and respond to risk with clarity and precision. We integrate a broad range of best-in-class services, from threat intelligence to forensic accounting and kinetic risk engineering, to provide a fully contextualised view of threats, enabling our clients to make confident, value-driven decisions about where and how to invest in resilience.
The Red Sea Crisis: Why This Conflict Matters to Global Business
Since November 2023, the Iran-backed Houthi movement (Ansar Allah) has carried out over 100 attacks on merchant vessels transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. This prompted the U.S. and its allies to launch Operation Prosperity Guardian in 2023, a joint naval mission to protect maritime traffic.
In March 2025, the USA’s most recent response consisted of launching a sustained airstrike campaign against Houthi infrastructure, targeting missile depots, drone launch sites and Houthi command facilities across cities like Sana’a, Saada and Hodeidah. The group remains defiant, threatening additional attacks against commercial shipping.
The crisis has led to a steep reduction in container traffic through the Red Sea, falling by as much as 75%, with many shipping companies rerouting vessels around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. This detour adds 10 to 14 days to the average 30 to 40-day Asia-Europe route and significantly increases fuel costs, insurance premiums and transit complexity.
Rates have surged in response. The Platts Container Index peaked at $5,272.50 per FEU in January 2024, before stabilising at $2,000 in March. For European retailers and manufacturers, the result has been higher costs, inventory delays and profit margin erosion. Seasonal industries and just-in-time manufacturing are especially vulnerable.
With Easter approaching and disruptions ongoing, some businesses are turning to costly alternatives such as air freight, which saw an 11% increase in demand in December 2024 alone (IATA).
Meanwhile, the Houthis continue to strike both military and commercial vessels, prompting U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to warn of an unrelenting counter-response: “The minute the Houthis say, ‘We’ll stop shooting at your ships [and] we’ll stop shooting at your drones,’ this campaign will end but, until then, it will be unrelenting,”
Iran, a key Houthi ally, has issued warnings against U.S. escalation. The region remains a high-risk zone, with major strategic and economic consequences for global trade.
The Challenge for Risk Leaders
Supply chain threats are often out of your control, from natural disasters and civil unrest to theft or cyberattacks. When these incidents occur in key logistics hubs or chokepoints, they can have cascading effects across multiple sectors.
Some events are isolated; others, like the Red Sea disruption, are far-reaching. In all cases, risk leaders need rapid, reliable information to understand what’s happening, where and how it could affect operations. Real-time intelligence enables businesses to detect vulnerabilities, conduct stress tests and execute disaster prevention strategies.
However, when real-time data is limited or siloed, businesses are left exposed. Sigma7’s S7ONE platform bridges this gap, delivering visibility, speed and relevance to decision-makers across logistics, security and continuity teams.
How Sigma7 Supports Supply Chain Resilience
Our intelligence and risk monitoring platform are built to support decision-making at every level, from local asset protection to global risk strategy. Here’s how we help clients maintain continuity during complex disruptions:
Geofencing Critical Routes and Facilities
Using our geofencing tool, clients can define custom boundaries around critical trade routes such as the Red Sea, Suez Canal or Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Choose your date range and filter for an involved actor of your choice (Houthi Rebels) and hit search. Once you save your search, by turning notifications on, the platform automatically alerts users to verified incidents, including airstrikes, naval threats, civil unrest or logistical blockages, within a chosen radius and defined filters.
Static Asset Monitoring for Proximity-Based Alerts
Clients can upload their fixed supply chain assets (ports, warehouses, production facilities) to receive alerts when verified incidents occur within a set distance, from 1km to 100km. This enables hyperlocal situational awareness and faster risk mitigation.
Data-Driven Decision Support
Whether you are managing a global logistics network or running a regional security operation, Sigma7 enables better decision-making by combining tactical intelligence with operational and strategic planning tools.
Use intelligence summaries, historical trend data and incident mapping to support:
• Alternate route planning
• Crisis simulations
• Supplier risk assessments
• Executive briefings
Conclusion
The conflict in the Red Sea is not an isolated threat. It’s a signal of the new era of operational risk, where regional crises can trigger global disruption. Resilient organizations aren’t just reacting to the news; they’re planning ahead with real-time intelligence, tested contingency plans and the tools to protect their people, assets and supply chains.
Sigma7 is your end-to-end strategic risk management partner. We provide the tools, insight and expertise to help you not just withstand disruption, but adapt, respond and thrive in the face of it.
