Broader Supply Chains prevent business competition risks

Forward-thinking companies with upgraded processes and technologies validate that Supply Chain (SC) excellence is now broadly accepted as a factor for overall business strategy, value to customers and management across a company. 

How does your business view the current impact on SC design and performance? 

Nowadays, more companies are adopting a demand-driven focal point on planning, trying to manage demand more competently. To adapt to this sort of approaches and to line up the sale potential along with such outlooks, you have to recognise what your company is best at - production, sales, or delivering. How?

·       This demand-driven line helps companies build up a more customer-focused mindset without diminishing operational effectiveness. 

·       Demand Planning can notably upgrade hard-management work whilst helping mostly customer service and costs attempts. 

·       Advanced-demand planning system can also help disclose data and pinpoint issues hidden in a company's information systems.  

·       Companies must direct an internal demand review to collect data from all areas, to gain consent on what to sell, the product category and the resulting profits; the goal is the constant progress of forecasting precision. 

Demand Planning strategy - SC requires from all sectors to agree on a single-compromised Demand Planning strategy to examine issues involving customer's demand models, like market environments, new or removed products, competitors, the sum-up of demand and associated revenue plans. It is a significant contributor to the highest operations planning (S&OP) process.

Demand Planning and forecasting generate effective outcomes and bring more value to organisations. It can have a decisive impact on new product launches, management and inventory planning, customer service, supply planning competences and sourcing approaches.

Collaboration among participants in the extensive SC - There has been an effort towards a more in-depth collaboration among suppliers and customer within the mature SCs to boost visibility all through the value chain, in an attempt to make right management decisions, with the best available financial information diminishing value chain costs eventually. 

Globalisation – Due to the globally-escalating advances on communication, the business panorama is making current processes and technology not flexible enough to cope with globalisation. It is significantly impacting the way of doing business in most industries, even on regional locations; areas like manufacturing, distribution, sourcing of materials, invoicing and returns; at the top the SC due to the incorporation of global supplier and customer networks. 

A well-thinkable approach can improve both the network and the flow of materials and betters the costs perspective (Total Landed cost,) through advanced-technology aiming to deliver the best answers to strategic matters.

The escalating competition and price demands - The rocketing commoditisation of products makes it challenging to set you apart from competitors. Innovation and brand equity set limits to control the average price in the market. To keep on competing, organisations have to make significant cost improvements, the re-designing of their SC and its technology to cut down cost and to build a more capable value chain that delivers value-added services to undergo the demands of more-complex customers, through:

·       Collaboration among SCs partakers.

·       Improved-strategic on Procurement and sourcing.

·       Possible outsourcing strategies.

·       Sales and operations planning.

·       The application of labelling and packaging policies.

·       The use of Radiofrequency Identification (RFID.) 

·       The re-designing of transportation, distribution management and drop shipping strategies.

·       Improved Product-lifecycle Management (PLM.)

·       Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI.)

·       To recognise the role of technology in broad SC.

Modernising processes with an improved design enhance collaboration throughout networks; up-to-date services will support your company to stay competitive and reinforce interactions with customers. 

Outsourcing – Leaders realised that outsourcing, part or all of the SC, could be to their advantage, gaining extra interactions through information and systems channels, cost and quality of global manufacturing, and distribution. Organisations have to set better-effective regulations and procedures in place to counterbalance the fact that SC potentials no longer pinpoint locally.  

The optimum-outsourced SC

·       To apply a top-quality SC network strategy. 

·       The insertion of outsourcing partners in the information chain. 

·       To establish control mechanisms to monitor the various components of the SC proactively. 

·       Information systems to connect and coordinate the SC as seamlessly as possible.

Product Life-cycle Management (PLM) - Currently, the pressure is on companies to rapidly innovate products and launch them into the market while competing with prevailing goods yet in high-demand. Without efficient PLM, the outcome could not be predictable. Through a PLM, your businesses can benefit from:

·       The designing of goods could share mutual operations, materials or components with similar products.

·       Through diminishing obsolescence risk statements, it leverages cost when buying crucial resources and makes sure that infrastructure financing is the best possible spent. 

·       PLM will help to better your time to market.

·       PLM efforts can protect you against risks of unexpected cost escalation, a deficient new product launch, sudden obsolescence write-off, and can re-value your customer's insight about your business as a valuable developer. 

Labelling regulations - Without the observance of local packaging and labelling regulations, merchandise might disrupt regional requirements, avoiding the distribution and selling in such market. PLM processes can help safeguard those products manufacturing, and the target for particular market needs are well-supervised and are complying.

The role of technology - Edge technologies, for instance, Blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), Business Intelligence, RFID and more, are supporting SCs to become more transparent by providing the data required in real-time, allowing businesses to detect human, process and equipment mistakes or other errors down the whole process.

Further comments: As SC networks have become more complex, the need for more improved- broaden SC technology solutions has become crucial. To have a sustainable improvement in SC performance, a company must have the right balance of investments in organisation, processes and technology. 

How are you taking hold of your businesses Supply Chain?

Dave Food

Prophetic Technology

M?: +44 7775 861863