Three Ways to Future- Proof Supply Chains

CIO Applications| Friday, August 27, 2021

Businesses must stop defining lean business models as conserving money at any costs to avoid similar ramifications during the next earthquake.

Fremont, CA: Many companies had large worldwide supply chains to organize in early 2020 when the Covid-19 outbreak halted the world. They needed to figure out how much inventory was required, when and where, and how much was already in production or about to start. Covid-19 arrived on top of fundamental changes in the business landscape that had been brewing for years for many organizations. As a result, companies must make adjustments on numerous fronts, including supply and demand, supply chain digitization, and leadership development. They will have obstacles as a result, but there will also be several opportunities.

Here are three ways to improve supply chains in organizations:

Segmenting supply chains

Performing a thorough examination of customer needs is the first step in changing from a one-size-fits-all to a differentiated supply chain management approach. Different needs should be translated into independent supply chains that connect strategies with value propositions, as it is rare for all client segments and product categories to be equally significant to a firm.

Boosting resilience

The Covid-19 outbreak and the resulting product shortages served as stark reminders of how difficult it is to supply consumer demand on time and in the correct places. Businesses must stop defining lean business models as conserving money at any cost to avoid similar ramifications during the next earthquake. Just in time, resilience has supplanted single-source as the guiding premise of supply chain management.

Smarter Operations

During the Covid-19 issue, the benefits of digitization for supply chain management became abundantly evident, mainly when it came to digital visibility, which allowed for real-time assessment of the pandemic's consequences. The addition of AI to this visibility streamlines supply chain management even more. However, even managers initially skeptical of AI's ability to deal with such a massive disruption as the epidemic learned to believe in it.