| Managing the supply chain and finances are the core | | | | mature and agile is supply chain |
| factors that determine the success of any | | | | - Logistics Agility: Processes such as using nearest |
| organization. For ages, executives keep on | | | | warehouse to the customer, supplier drop ship, |
| experimenting with different approaches to optimize | | | | transit order re-direction or grouping shipments in |
| their supply chain and cash flow. Supply chain | | | | same route play a major role in streamlining the |
| management is one of the most important strategic | | | | supply chain. Organizations need to keep on thinking |
| aspects of any business enterprise. Decisions must be | | | | on new actions in this space and plan to execute |
| made about how to coordinate the production of | | | | them frequently |
| goods and services, how and where to store | | | | - Business to Business Collaboration: Customers and |
| inventory, whom to buy materials from and how to | | | | Suppliers are 2 businesses that one must collaborate |
| distribute them in the most cost-effective, timely | | | | with. This will not only keep the inventory to the |
| manner. What are those Critical Dimensions or Key | | | | minimum level but also will help in improving fill rates |
| Performance Indicators that drive the agility and | | | | and reduce stock-outs. Identify the processes where |
| maturity of a supply chain? Most of them are quite | | | | collaboration will help the organization most and take |
| obvious and most of the organizations keep a | | | | actions accordingly |
| religious watch on this but even then those | | | | - Risk Management: Supply chain resiliency is one of |
| companies make only the 10% of all those | | | | the most critical factors in maintaining the agility of |
| organizations that can benefit much more if they | | | | supply chain and it is seen that though most of the |
| streamline their processes, capabilities and compliance | | | | organizations are worried about this but do not take |
| related stuff connected with SCM. Let us look at | | | | substantial actions in this area. It is important to |
| some of the critical dimensions in this respect: | | | | manage supply chain resiliency to risk related events. |
| - Supply Chain Visibility: End to end supply chain | | | | Also, employ network design and inventory |
| visibility is the first major need to make it more agile | | | | optimization tools to quantify supply chain risk and |
| and mature. It is highly recommended to use a | | | | create short-term and long-term crisis response plans |
| commercially available best of breed (or ERP) solution | | | | - Compliance in Trade: The more manual hand-offs |
| to monitor line level statuses in orders, on hand | | | | are present in the processes, more are the chances |
| inventory and those assets that are not stationary | | | | of inconsistency in compliance of trade laws. Also, |
| and this includes field inventory, service equipment, | | | | not having a single source of truth and independent |
| containers etc. Certain visibility initiatives like financing | | | | databases for import and export data per country |
| triggers, warning alerts on events that drive | | | | will also contribute to non compliance ultimately |
| inventory stocking, tracking actual total landed cost | | | | impacting the supply chain processes. It is high time |
| as sales order progresses etc. are the hot initiatives | | | | to have one single enterprise wide trade compliance |
| in this area | | | | platform that is automated and integrated with all the |
| - Automation Level: It is not just automation of order | | | | related processes |
| entry to picking to shipping and from forecasting to | | | | - Competitive Resourcing:The times of in-house |
| demand to plan to build/procure but also end to | | | | resourcing are now ripe and the success of |
| automation of all systems that complements your | | | | outsourcing story has proven that while the in-house |
| main system of reporting and transactions. It includes | | | | resources in certain areas are more costly, they also |
| systems like PLM or B2C order capturing portals that | | | | are less efficient that their BPO counterparts. Need is |
| are input systems as well as Business Intelligence | | | | to evaluate carefully, where exactly this initiative is |
| tools that act as the output systems to your main | | | | required and what are the tangible or non tangible |
| transaction system. The more the automation, more | | | | benefits expected and take an informed decision. |