How can you build a stronger supply chain network?

2 Evaluate your suppliers

The next step is to evaluate your current and potential suppliers based on their capabilities, performance, and alignment with your needs. You can use criteria such as quality, price, delivery, service, responsiveness, innovation, and sustainability to assess your suppliers. You can also conduct audits, surveys, interviews, or site visits to verify their compliance with your standards and expectations. By evaluating your suppliers, you can select the best ones for your supply chain network and establish long-term partnerships with them.

5 Foster relationships

The fifth step is to foster relationships with your supply chain partners to build trust, loyalty, and mutual benefit. You can use strategies such as joint planning, information sharing, risk sharing, incentive alignment, or performance measurement to align your goals, expectations, and incentives with your suppliers, distributors, and customers. You can also use methods such as feedback, recognition, negotiation, or conflict resolution to maintain and improve your supply chain relationships. By fostering relationships, you can enhance cooperation, innovation, and resilience in your supply chain network.

6 Learn and improve

The final step is to learn and improve from your supply chain experiences and outcomes. You can use metrics such as key performance indicators (KPIs), customer satisfaction scores, or return on investment (ROI) to measure and evaluate your supply chain performance and results. You can also use tools such as benchmarking, gap analysis, or root cause analysis to identify and address your supply chain strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. By learning and improving, you can continuously adapt and innovate your supply chain network to meet your changing needs and challenges.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?