Business Flexibility and Agility for Supply Chain and Logistics Management Professionals

As there are several changes occurring in the business environment it is essential for the Supply Chain and Logistics Managers to make the system flexible. All companies must have a plan that should have details about the unexpected changes that may occur during the various phases of business. Two terms named flexibility and agility are used by Supply Chain management professionals to explain about these changes.

Flexibility in Supply Chain management is usually associated with changes in scheduling and planning process encountered during various stages in supply chain. Most of these changes occur unexpectedly but through experience such changes can be predicted and necessary steps can be made taking into considerations that does not affect the normal running of business.

Agility in Supply Chain Management is associated with sudden occurrence of instances under special circumstances which are not planned and which are not even scheduled. There are certain kind of incidents that may occur unexpectedly and quickly affecting the whole business and there should be proper room for improvement in such cases.

In order to succeed a business must be both agile and flexible. This is due to the fact that if the business is agile it can respond quickly to situations and if a business is flexible it can plan in advance about the common problems that may arise which can be predicted.