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Spotlight on Supply Chain Management: Raising the Profile & Importance of the Supply Chain Manager

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Archives, Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, International Trade

Spotlight on Supply Chain Management: Raising the Profile & Importance of the Supply Chain Manager

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Supply chain management has become a much more important business function in all companies since the pandemic began in February 2020. Let’s frame the issues which have made this executive and management change occur.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been devastating to the performance of both domestic and global supply chains. The disruption, uncertainty, cost escalations, and delays which began in March 2020, continue into the fall of 2021.

The crisis caused by a disturbing and unanticipated imbalance between demand and supply in all world markets has resulted in unprecedented challenges facing all managers and operations personnel engaged in the supply chain, procurement, manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, transportation, customer service, import/export, and sales.

The challenges and their impact extend to all the support functions to supply chains: service providers, freight forwarders, carriers, 3PL’s, technology providers, consolidators, and distributors.

While the supply chain has generally had a “subordinated” posture in most companies, the Pandemic has now elevated this area of responsibility because the consequences of poor performance and failure are so impactful in the success of a business’s margin, profit, growth, and sustainability.

The importance of this area runs equally now to the importance of the supply chain manager, who may be known under the various “Titles” in the organization. Supply Chain, Procurement, Logistics, Warehousing & Distribution, Manufacturing, Materials Management, Demand Planning, etc.

With this “increase in importance”:

The disruption has impacted every company, executive, and business vertical. And we must also acknowledge the consequences to people and their families.

The impact to supply chains has moved up the ladder in every company all the way to the CEO, The Board, and the Shareholders.

In our consulting practice, where 90% of the time we deal with mid-level managers, in the last 20 months, my team and I have met with more CEOs than we have in the last ten years.

Supply Chain Managers and their colleagues have been forced due to the disorder in their business models, to work harder, work smarter and ultimately bring resources, experiences, and capabilities to the benefit of the disruptive impacts of the Pandemic.

Supply Chain Managers have been now tested in areas as never seen previously. Most companies, over time, have seen physical, weather-related geopolitical events impact their supply chains. Negative events happen all the time. While we have had some more notable micro-events in the supply chain in the last 10-15 years:

-The Recession of 2008/9

-Hurricane Sandy in 2012

-The 2011 Tsunami in Japan

-Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005

-Global Wildfires 2019

-Sichuan Earthquake in China in 2008

-South and Mid-West USA Tornados in 2013

-Mississippi River Flooding 2011

-Northeast Winter Storm in 2018

-The current Covid-19 Pandemic 2020-?

The impact on people, business, and the costs in billions and trillions from all these events is unthinkable. And the challenges that faced businesses and supply chain managers were dramatic.

However, this Pandemic has presented a unique set of circumstances:

-Every country and every person and business are impacted

-Personnel working from home has changed communications, team efforts, camaraderie and in some cases increased effectiveness and performance

-The tenure, now passing 20 months

-The uncertainty of planning out supply chain functions

-Demand Planning is almost impossible

-Lean Manufacturing and “Just in Time” Inventory Management Systems, have been retired

-All business models are being strained resulting in alternative and modified structures

-Managers and staff are working longer hours, becoming “burnt out” is a serious reality

-Hiring has been impaired

-Margins, profits, growth, and sustainability are all being challenged

With all these concerns having been identified as the “new reality” the good news is that many organizations’ talents, particularly in supply chain functions are finding ways to meet these challenges and maintaining their company’s business models to a necessary extent of successful operations.

Supply Chain Managers have become creative in their approach and along with companies like ours, Blue Tiger International, have found solutions to mitigate the impact of the Pandemic.

We have developed 14 Solutions, collaboratively with our supply chain managers. Some of these are:

The new roles and responsibilities of The Pandemic Supply Chain Manager require them to “think-out-of-the-box” and create approaches that were never thought of or utilized previously.

At Blue Tiger International, we become an extension of the supply chain manager’s resources and provide a business model to evaluate these options and apply them to the uniqueness of their business models and supply chains.

The four steps profiled above start with an overall assessment of the domestic and global supply chain. That review provides some solutions which must be tied into a financial evaluation that defines ROI.

This is followed by an operational review which determines what changes in the companies supply chain and business model require modification to meet the solution requirements. As an example, if it was assessed and evidenced ROI, the company choosing a Foreign Trade Zone as an option, it is likely changes would be made to the functions of compliance, security, product accountability, technology, and business process.

The last step is implementation, working collaboratively to make the solution work to the benefit of the business model.

This is all unfertile ground to the Supply Chain Executive. What we have observed is a significant “rise to the occasion” of many supply chain personnel, managers and executives to meet and successfully manage these required changes.

They are not necessarily eliminating the issues, but they are providing mitigating strategies all in the name of protecting market share, margins and sustainability.

Supply Chain Managers have become “Frontline Heroes” in the face of this Pandemic and deserve much credit and recognition for keeping supply chains functioning in the face of all these challenges.

This has and will continue to “raise the profile & importance” of Supply Chain Management in all companies’ business models. Additionally, senior management is recognizing their value to the organization, which has been a long-time coming.

________________________________________________________________

Thomas A. Cook is a 30 year seasoned veteran of global trade and Managing Director of Blue Tiger International, based in New York, LA and West Palm Beach, Florida.

The author of 19 books on international business, two best business sellers. Graduate of NYS Maritime Academy with an undergraduate and graduate degree in marine transportation and business management.

Tom has a worldwide presence through over 300 agents in every major city along with an array of transportation providers and solutions.

Tom works with a number of Associations providing “value add” to their membership services and enhancing their overall reach into global sourcing and in export sales management.

He can be reach at tomcook@bluetigerintl.com or 516-359-6232

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Archives, Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, International Trade

Procurement Evolved: The New Characteristics of Post-Pandemic Procurement

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The pandemic challenged every business function to change how it operates and adapt to a new normal. For some, those changes have already been reversed. But for procurement, there’s no going back.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced virtually every business function to change how it worked, step into new roles, and adapt to extremely challenging market and operational conditions. For many of those functions, those changes – while significant – were short-term, and designed to help them weather the storm.

But, for procurement teams, the pandemic has accelerated evolution for the function – one that was already well underway before COVID-19 hit. It propelled the function’s journey from ‘back office spend optimizer’ to ‘strategic value creation all-star’. And now, there’s no going back.

Over the past 18 months, leading procurement functions have stepped up to deliver business value far beyond simple cost savings and margin optimization. Not surprisingly, their organizations want them to keep delivering it.

As a result, we’re seeing a new kind of procurement function emerge from the pandemic. It’s a stronger, more empowered function, characterized by three key evolutions:

Evolution #1: From reactive damage mitigator to proactive risk expert

Procurement has always been strong in times of crisis. But, in the past, teams have been restricted by the historical pricing, demand and trend data available to them. That retroactive insight meant that procurement teams were always looking for the best ways to react to a crisis, rather than sidestepping emerging threats proactively.

Thanks to recent advances in analytics and intelligence capabilities, as well as the emergence of sophisticated insight-delivery solutions, the crisis events of the last 18 months have given us our first real opportunity to see the power of proactive crisis insight in action.

Procurement teams empowered with these capabilities were able to identify the early indicators of major supply chain disruptions and take proactive actions to safeguard against them. They shifted between suppliers, sourced from new geographies, and rebuilt entire category strategies to ensure that their companies could continue operating as conditions worsened.

But business continuity was just the beginning of the benefits seen by these teams. Because they were able to watch these trends emerging, leading procurement teams were able to map and understand the potential impacts of each crisis on the business and provide valuable input for crisis management and risk mitigation.

Evolution #2: From supply administrator to strategic innovation driver

During the pandemic, supplier relationships have been more valuable and important than ever. At the peak of the disruption, the right relationship with a strategic supplier could mean the difference between business as usual and completely halting operations.

Leading procurement teams have been building high-value relationships with suppliers for decades, but the events seen in 2020 and 2021 were a powerful opportunity to showcase their value to the rest of the organization. As a result, organizations are now more interested than ever in the other great ways that procurement teams can create value from these relationships.

Exclusive contracts negotiated with suppliers, for example, are a valuable asset for supporting innovation. Through the contracts they help create, procurement teams can build partnerships that have a huge impact on overall business strategy, bringing new USPs into the organization.

As the first point of contact for suppliers, nobody in the business knows what’s happening with those suppliers better than your procurement team. That means they’re exposed to things like new products, new materials, new capabilities, and new offerings before anyone else, all of which can be used to drive commercial, product, and innovation strategies.

The leading teams of today aren’t just filling orders and signing invoices for suppliers – they’re partnering with them strategically. Now, businesses are waking up to the implications that have for innovation, and harnessing procurement teams’ potential as innovation drivers.

Evolution #3: From data comber to action-oriented all-star

Procurement experts can spend hours sifting through data to identify trends that might impact the commodities, markets, and suppliers they depend on. That’s admirable and has delivered immense value to businesses. But today, it’s not necessarily the best use of the procurement team’s time.

In recent years, sophisticated insight and intelligence solutions have transformed how procurement teams gather, consume, understand, and act on commodity and market intelligence. And once again, the pandemic has proven to be a powerful test of how those capabilities support teams and enable value creation in times of crisis.

At a time when every second counted, procurement teams saw immense value from those solutions and put them to use to act faster and stay ahead of competitors who were facing the same challenges and choices.

Take Nomad Foods, for example. When the pandemic first struck, it used intelligence solutions from The Smart Cube to quickly understand the potential impact on key categories and adjust its supplier portfolio to keep the business on track. But, because the team was able to act so fast, they were also able to look beyond ensuring continuity and identify an opportunity to create value and reduce waste amid the disruption.

The team identified that the closure of many restaurants and hospitality businesses would have a massive impact on many food categories and create significant short-term oversupply of many ingredients. By spotting this opportunity early, Nomad Foods was able to act before competitors and optimize its category strategy at a time when many other businesses were struggling to keep their doors open.

Numerous stories like this have emerged from the pandemic. Together they’ve helped organizations understand that the modern procurement function is able to deliver the greatest value when it’s empowered with timely, actionable insights enabled via the right tools and technologies, rather than having to generate those insights manually.

_______________________________________________________________________

Omer is a co-founder of The Smart Cube and leads the firm’s business across The Americas. He works with Procurement and Strategy leaders at global organizations, transforming their teams to become value-driven and insight-led. Omer has more than 30 years of management consulting, global corporate and industry experience across North America, Europe and Asia. His prior roles include A.T. Kearney (North America), Warner Lambert (USA) and The Perrier Group (Asia-Pacific). Omer has an MBA from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, USA, and a BBA from the University of East Asia.

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Archives, Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, International Trade

5 Promising Ways to Reduce the Impact of MRO on the Supply Chain

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Supply chain managers and procurement specialists often must reduce the effects of maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) expenditures on the supply chain. That’s not always easy, but these five tips should spark meaningful and measurable progress.

1. Understand the Impacts of Poor MRO Management

MRO encompasses essential items that are not part of the finished products — sometimes referred to as indirect costs. For example, the category might include lubricant for a machine, safety goggles for workers and scheduled maintenance appointments for equipment.

MRO expenditures typically account for 5 to 10% of the cost of goods sold. Some people initially view that percentage range as small and do not manage MRO procurement as well as they should or at all. However, that’s a mistake, because running out of critical items or failing to stay on top of maintenance could bring knock-on effects.

For example, if a production line machine runs out of an essential chemical, its output could completely stop until someone re-supplies. Alternatively, running out of safety gear could put lives at risk and expose a company to scrutiny from regulators if accidents happen. Weighing the consequences of inadequate MRO management should provide the encouragement any company needs to take it more seriously.

2. Determine How to Mitigate Climate Change-Related Effects

Many leaders across all industries are paying more attention to how climate change could affect MRO expenditures. For example, some scientists believe climate change makes hurricanes more severe, causing more rainfall than past storms did. In that case, maintaining a building may involve purchasing and installing flood barriers or changing a warehouse layout, so the most valuable items stay out of the reach of rising water.

Imagine an area starts experiencing more severe winter storms. In that case, a company’s MRO budget may include more salt and other de-icing products to keep loading bays and other regularly used areas safe and accessible. Alternatively, business leaders may need to invest in cloud software that lets some people work from home if they can’t reach their workplaces due to icy roads. When companies take preventive measures like these, their overall weather-linked MRO costs should decrease due to better preparedness.

Inclement weather’s effects on the supply chain are not merely hypothetical. A report showed that the 2011 floods in Thailand affected more than 14,500 entities that used Thai suppliers. Those weather events resulted in billions of dollars worth of losses for the companies that had operations disrupted. Thus, inclement weather could raise operational expenses if a business ramps up production to meet the needs of clients affected by production stoppages from other suppliers in hard-hit areas.

3. Create an Effective Preventive Maintenance Program

When maintaining the equipment that helps the supply chain run smoothly, there are two primary approaches to pursue — reactive and preventive care. The first type centers on addressing problems once they appear. Conversely, proactive maintenance is all about having technicians assess machines often enough to catch minor issues before they cause significant outages or require total machine replacement.

One survey showed that 80% of maintenance personnel preferred preventive maintenance. The respondents found it especially valuable as part of a multidimensional maintenance plan. Such an approach lets companies avoid the costliest or most time-consuming repairs. That’s because technicians notice most issues while the abnormalities are still small and simple to address.

Business leaders may not immediately associate some MRO expenditures with preventive maintenance. For example, one professional accepted a position as the maintenance manager of a fully automated warehouse. Soon after assuming the role, he assessed how cleanliness supported preventive maintenance by showing more details about functionality. He gave the example of how it’s more challenging to spot a machine leak when the floor below the equipment is dirty.

4. Set Relevant Key Performance Indicators

Many company leaders — especially those who recognize data’s value — set key performance indicators (KPIs) to track whether improvements on particular metrics occur over time. If they do, that generally means the business is moving toward its goals. On the other hand, if KPIs get worse or stay static despite employees’ best efforts, it’s time to assess what’s going wrong and make the necessary alterations.

Specific KPIs are exceptionally valuable for decreasing MRO’s impact on the supply chain. For example, measuring the percentage of slow-moving inventory and keeping it under 10% is a suggested ideal. Achieving that aim shows company leaders are not making the common mistake of buying a product that falls under their MRO expenditure umbrella, but finding it expires before they can use all or even most of it.

Inventory accuracy is another worthwhile KPI to track. An ideal is 95% or above. Incorrect MRO product counts could prove disastrous — particularly when many purchasing representatives buy PPE to keep supply chain workers safe. Imagine a scenario where a computer system says a company has 1,000 masks, but, due to human error, they only have 10 in stock. That’s an extreme example that illustrates the importance of staying on top of inventory counts.

5. Assess and Tweak the MRO Budget

Some people make the mistake of treating the MRO budget as a static entity. However, doing that could cause them to miss out on money-saving opportunities. For example, using one MRO supplier instead of several can reduce transactional overhead. In addition to saving on shipping, they may also become eligible for volume discounts.

Regularly scrutinizing the MRO budget can also illuminate whether businesses may be reducing costs in the wrong ways. Maybe they switched to cheaper cutting tools to minimize spending. These may have a lower upfront cost, but add more expenses to the overall budget. Perhaps employees complained and said the tools broke often or quickly became dull during typical use. Thus, managers would probably buy more of the items than before while trying to accommodate those shortcomings.

Making MRO Spending Reductions a Priority

These five tips show how businesses can act strategically to limit MRO spending’s adverse effects on the supply chain. Doing so can keep a company within its budget, plus make it more responsive to marketplace changes that may require operational changes to meet demands.

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Emily Newton is an industrial journalist. As Editor-in-Chief of Revolutionized, she regularly covers how technology is changing the industry.

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Archives, Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily

How to Optimize Your E-Procurement Process

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While modern technology generally vastly improves procurement operations, there still is a right and wrong way to establish an e-procurement program. Behind-the-scenes is where things can go very wrong. Inexperienced managers using ineffective strategies can significantly increase risk. Some things that may happen include data inaccuracies or failure to collect it, improper supply or shortage issues, poorly chosen vendors, and something known as dark purchasing.

To avoid these problems and streamline the e-procurement process, it’s necessary to optimize various aspects of the operation.

Tips to Optimize Your E-Procurement Process

You should already have a strong e-procurement system in place, utilizing various tools, applications, and professionals to ensure the operation is carried out smoothly. You may have had this in place for years, or maybe you’re just starting. In either case, you’ll want to focus on optimizing those programs.

Here are some ways to ensure procurement optimization is happening well and delivering value.

1. Conduct Market Research

Even with digital support, due diligence is necessary. Procurement teams must carry out market research to understand product fulfillment times, vendor or supplier performance, supply chain bottlenecks, and similar factors within the organization. Using tools that specialize in e-sourcing, e-tendering and e-informing practices will provide the most benefits. Most e-procurement solutions centralize supply management — including obtaining and comparing supplies — and aid in the order approval process.

The research also provides the type of information that can be applied to optimize the process. Start by building a comprehensive picture of what each supplier will be doing, how orders will be filled and how reliable the various channels are. It’s also the perfect time to develop risk assessment strategies, so there’s a way to deal with each potential challenge or obstacle.

2. Focus on E-procurement Planning

Acquisition and procurement teams must have strategies in place for e-sourcing, e-tendering and e-ordering. How can the team make sure the inventory is accurately monitored and new supplies are coming in regularly? What’s the plan to deal with damaged, missing, or counterfeit goods?

E-procurement solutions can be used to optimize every stage of the procurement cycle, including:

-E-sourcing

-E-tendering

-E-ordering

-E-reverse auctioning and contracting

-Web-based ERP

-E-informing

Acquisition teams should utilize the tools to plan for the initial stages of procurement and beyond. For example, e-ordering includes support to monitor deliveries, which aids receiving practices. Having that information is always beneficial, but a proper plan will detail how it should be used to inform future events like inventory management, order fulfillment or pass-through shipping to other businesses.

There is also a regulatory component to the entire process, which means understanding the various laws and regulations and how they apply to certain situations. Compliance must be absolute. At least a small portion of the team should be focused on meeting compliance and regulatory requirements, with constant monitoring and revised plans.

The Federal Acquisition Regulations state that the acquisition process should always involve proper coordination throughout an operation using a dedicated procurement plan. Without one, operations could turn disastrous.

3. Master Vendor Research and Selection

Selecting a vendor or supplier is generally an involved process that requires assessing and utilizing various metrics. E-procurement solutions streamline this. For example, electronic catalogs can help with researching, selecting and interacting with vendors — specifically when bidding for orders.

E-cataloguing also makes the landscape more competitive, as suppliers are required to be more transparent and provide comparable quotes.

Above all, it leads to stronger supplier-management dealings through a more effective research and selection process. Proactive supplier development, adherence to approved vendor lists, real-time performance metrics, and up-to-date records and information are available through digital solutions. That makes it easier than ever to manage and keep up with relations.

It’s important to maintain strong management strategies for three major reasons. It helps build long-term relationships, enables a proactive quality management system and includes sub-tier contract flow downs through auxiliary vendors.

4. Incorporate Advanced Metrics and Automate

Leveraging e-procurement systems for active monitoring can go a long way toward improving performance and efficiency.

The best strategy is to have a more proactive approach, dealing with events as soon as you know about them, bracing for impact, and possibly even enabling alternate methods to mitigate losses. Fortunately, real-time data solutions and modern technologies, like IIoT, can make this much easier. Today’s e-procurement solutions also incorporate machine learning and mathematical modeling, both leveraging advanced forms of analytics.

First, you’ll need to ensure you’re working with vendors who have embraced Industry 4.0 and are actively utilizing their own forms of real-time data. Assuming real-time data implementations already exist across your operation, the next step is to unite those data streams and leverage an analytics platform that can identify mission-critical supply trends.

That incoming data can tell you what will happen, when it might occur and what that might mean for your business. Moreover, predictive modeling can help you strategize the actual events and build more successful solutions to the challenges. You can track expenditures, monitor risks new and old, reduce bottlenecks, predict errors, keep up with market demands, and much more.

5. Close Out Contracts for Good

Building long-term relationships is a valuable approach, but you will have temporary terms and contracts too, and there will be times you work with a supplier in a one-off transaction. By combining all necessary tools under a single user interface, e-procurement systems make it simple to deal with the many intricacies of vendor management.

Whether it’s a long-term deal or a temporary one, you should ensure the contract and the acquisition are truly severed at the close of a relationship. You may need to conduct exit interviews, greenlight inspections, double-check contract terms, count inventory or supplies, and so on. Digital tools should help facilitate these interactions and organize, store and recall the data later, especially during critical moments.

Every e-procurement strategy should have a phase or rule that deals with this close-out procedure. Streamlining the process can help sustain your forward momentum when moving to new relationships and beyond. It also provides valuable insights if you ever have to circle back.

Preparing Your E-procurement Teams the Right Way

As a procurement manager or executive, overseeing the operation can be challenging. There are many challenges that need to be addressed along the way.

To do that, you’ll need to conduct the right market research, strengthen planning and master the vendor selection process through deep analysis. You’ll also need to incorporate real-time operations and performance metrics in a meaningful way to power proactive responses. Finally, remember to close out contracts properly, which includes collecting and processing a host of vital information — like exit interviews, greenlight inspections and more.

By preparing your e-procurement crews, you’re ensuring your business can continue, streamlined and successful, even in the face of major supply chain disasters. Therein lies the true value of an optimized process.

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Archives, Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, International Trade

3 New Supply Chain Management Solutions

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How does one balance cost reduction with customer satisfaction, while continuing to offer competitive services? This is the difficult question the Supply Chain is up against. Driven by digital transformation, it’s becoming increasingly innovative, collaborative and intelligent. Which management solutions does the Supply Chain rely on to meet these new challenges? Find the answer in the infographic.

Supply Chain Management: competitive stakes

Supply Chain Management refers to the overall management of all procurement steps, from supplier to end-customer. At a time where consumers are increasingly demanding because they are exposed to a very wide variety of options, effective Supply Chain management is crucial to ensuring a company’s competitive edge.

The main problem of Supply Chain management then becomes to link and coordinate all the stakeholders of the chain. To do this, it has gradually acquired various tools, which are primarily digital: WMS, TMS, EDI, etc.

New Supply Chain management solutions

There are 3 main Supply Chain management solutions:

Connected devices: they generate digital data that can be aggregated, analyzed and operated at all stages of the chain.

Smart Automation: according to an IBM survey, 80% of companies are expected to implement this mode of operation by 2021. Among other things, it helps to refine the accuracy of forecasts and improve execution speed.

Blockchain : an effective solution to ensure the complete traceability of products, it facilitates transparency and helps to combat fraud.

More than ever, Supply Chain management is now essential to maintaining and strengthening a company’s competitive edge. The solutions emerging today, blockchain connected devices, ensure both reactivity and traceability which have become real customer requirements. Want to know more?

__________________________________________________________________

Contact Generix Group’s Supply Chain Experts here

This article originally appeared on GenerixGroup.com. Republished with permission.

Archives, Global Trade Daily, News

Commissioned Survey Reveals Digital Maturity is Overestimated

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A global research survey conducted by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Ivalua revealed digital maturity is overestimated among most organizations within supply chain, procurement, and finance business leaders. A digital maturity index was used to evaluate organizations’ structure, strategy, process, measurement and technology and identified the stage of digital maturity. The results revealed only 16 percent of organizations were confirmed to have an advanced level of digital maturity in procurement out of the 65 percent of organizations that claimed to be advanced.

“Procurement leaders have the opportunity to deliver a true competitive advantage for their organizations,” said David Khuat-Duy, Corporate CEO of Ivalua. “Digital transformation is critical to success, but requires a realistic assessment of current maturity, a clear vision for each stage of the journey and the right technology.”

Additionally, the study discovered poor levels of supplier onboarding and poor user adoption were the top two primary reasons why organizations consider switching technology providers if they haven’t already, directly impacting their digital transformation efforts. Of these companies, only 17 percent are able to onboard new suppliers in less than one month while 59 percent take anywhere between one to three months.

“To ensure that technology empowers procurement transformation, rather than constrains it, leaders must consider their current and future requirements when evaluating options,” added David Khuat-Duy. “Doing so ensures a steady progression along their journey and the ability to gain an edge on competitors.

“Ivalua is uniquely able to empower and accelerate every stage of the digital transformation journey. Our platform helps organisations overcome obstacles like poor supplier onboarding and low user adoption. This is why we maintain the industry’s highest customer retention rate, at over 98%, year after year, while serving the most demanding brands in the world.”

To review the study in its entirety, visit: info.ivalua.com