Supply chain management is like a well-maintained machine; when used properly it can yield impressive results. But, a dynamic marketplace can disrupt your supply chain. Ideally, every business should embrace a demand-driven approach to exist and thrive.
What do the best businesses do in this regard? They follow 4 essential points – effective strategies, a well-defined plan, the appropriate tools, and quality supplier auditors. These keep them ready for future market changes. Let us look at some strategies that help them stand the test of time.
Demand-driven Planning and Business Model
The right prediction along with contingency planning helps you effectively manage risks like insolvent suppliers, natural calamities affecting your business, political upheaval, etc. You may then adjust your pricing as well as promotion strategies and shape demand. Introduce an additional product quickly, and drive revenue growth.
You may even expand margins for a high-demand good with low market supply. With a foresight to leverage opportunities and handle challenging events, your business will not just survive but also thrive.
With the boom in cloud supply chain technologies, a business can now keep a better track of their inventory, right from the store shelf to the manufacturer. For an agile demand-driven supply chain, you need end-to-end visibility across your business, from buyers and the market to the supply. And, cloud technology will greatly help you in this process.
Read: How Digitization can Change the Supply Chain Scenario
Adaptive Supply Chain With Quick Planning and Integrated Execution
Once you deal with demand and risk, adapt your supply chains to changing events and market opportunities. An expert freelance procurement consultant can help you with this. Backed by dynamic planning and fine-tune operations, you can better understand the market and demand changes, and embrace it.
These can minimize or even remove shocks across the supply network. As a result, you can have better visibility, improved sourcing and supply, and rapid decision making with better support and analytics.
Today, with a technological boom, the right processes, and the right people, it is very easy to achieve market reactivity.
Optimize Product Design and Management for Profitable Innovation
Innovation keeps you ahead of the competitors. But, for being successful, you must develop products at the right time, place, and cost. Decisions taken in the initial product development cycles can make or break the product. Your product designs should be optimized for manufacturability, supply, and supply chain operations.
Also, accurately analyze your delivery costs to maintain balance across your business operations. Additionally, if you can manage your product-related processes, information, decisions, and people throughout its lifecycle, you can achieve strong market results.
The best way to achieve this is through clear and smooth collaboration processes across the supply chain – from demand, the market, and consumers back to manufacturing and suppliers.
Align the Supply Chain With your Business Goals
Sales and operations planning processes allow for coordination between your manufacturing, sales, and distribution. But still, some gaps among strategy, finance, and operations continue to exist.
A great way to bridge these gaps is through integrated business planning involving the process, technology elements, and people of the business. It integrates forecasting systems and financial strategic budgeting with operations planning. This helps you make smart trade-off business decisions.
As a result, the developed revenue goals and financial budgets are validated against a detailed operating plan. Then they are responsively executed. Coupled with the efforts of top-notch supplier auditors, you can build a stronger supply chain.
Read: Guide to Optimizing Your Supply Chain in 2020
Embed Sustainability into Supply Chain Operations
Companies aiming for social and environmental sustainability can gain major competitive advantages through supplier management skills and production efficiency. Through some steps, you can achieve sustainability in supply chain operations.
Firstly, you must embed sustainability as a vital strategic component of your supply chain strategy. This signifies implementing it as a crucial requirement across every supply chain process.
Secondly, focus on real-time visibility and analyses, energy and resource consumption, and material or resource movement to achieve quick wins. Through these, you can gain reduced carbon inefficiencies, optimized travel and transportation, and also, minimized energy consumption.
Thirdly, you can retain the momentum by making sure there is constant improvement via audit, systematic measurement, and knowledge management. The best practices and compliance audits, along with an intelligent freelance procurement consultant, can help you achieve sustainable supply chain operations.
Ensure a Predictable and Reliable Supply
An unreliable supply chain will severely cost your business. This means there will be wrong products at the wrong place at the wrong time, leading to supply shortfalls. With continuous improvement and operational excellence strategies, you can have successful supply chain operations.
These effective strategies can help you rapidly respond to changes and increase profitability more than before. They have been tested across some highly valuable supply chains in the world. The way you implement them can be the difference between success and failure.
