Author Archives: Teddy Nee

Globalization Creates New Avenues for Supply Chain Risk: riskmethods Shares its Predictions for 2016

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As part of our ongoing series on what procurement technology providers see as the biggest challenge for procurement in 2016, we recently spoke to riskmethods to hear its thoughts on the topic. Heiko Schwarz, riskmethods founder and managing director, pointed to increased external risks, globalization and regulation compliance as the main issues procurement and supply chain managers will have to tackle in the new year.

These three major trends will expose organizations to risks in 2016, Heiko said. External risk will continue to be an issue. For example, extreme weather such as rain or snow storms will expose and disrupt supply chains even more than in the past, he said. Political risks have been a growing trend for years, but will continue in 2016 as well, he added.

Globalization is also pushing enterprises to search for new suppliers in countries or regions they probably have not worked in before. Procurement’s scope in the last year has dramatically changed, going from a “domestic-centric” view to a more global one, Heiko said. Specifically, he believes we will see movement away from China as the cost of operating there continues to rise. China is no longer a low-cost sourcing country, and this is putting pressure on companies to move to new areas, places such as the northern regions of Africa, he said. This globalization push will put increase supply chain complexities in 2016.

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3 Open Source Tools for Supply Chain Management

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If you manage a business which deals with physical goods, supply chain management is an important part of your business process. Whether you’re running a tiny Etsy store with just a few customers, or a Fortune 500 manufacturer or retailer with thousands of products and millions of customers worldwide, it’s important for you to have a close understanding of your inventory and the parts and raw materials you need to make your products.

Keeping track of physical items, suppliers, customers, and all of the many moving parts associated with each can greatly benefit from, and in some cases be totally dependent on specialized software to help you manage these workflows. In this article, we’ll take a look at some free and open source software options for supply chain management, and some of the features of each.

Supply chain management goes a little further than just inventory management. It can help you keep track of the flow of goods, to reduce costs, and help plan scenarios in which the supply chain could change. It can help you to keep track of compliance issues, whether these fall under the umbrella of legal requirements, quality minimums, or social and environmental responsibility. It can help you plan the minimum supply to keep on hand, and make smart decisions about order quantities and delivery times.

Because of their nature, a good deal of supply chain management software is bundled with other similar software, such as customer relationship managers and enterprise resource planning tools. So when making a decision about what tool is best for your organization, you may wish to consider integration with other tools as a part of your decision making criteria.

Read more at 3 Open Source Tools for Supply Chain Management

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How to recover from supply chain disruptions

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Risk mitigation is a crucial component of supply chain management. Preparing for potential disruptions is one of the most important yet challenging tasks faced by company managers, especially since there is an abundance of possible situations threatening operations at all times.

Unfortunately, damage control planning is something many companies tend to neglect. Last year, a study conducted by the supply chain management team at the University of Tennessee found that only about 50 percent of businesses have a recovery process in place to reference in the event a facility’s operations are interrupted.

Importance of response planning
Companies of all sizes are susceptible to dangerous disruptions, with global supply chains being the most vulnerable. Which is why it is surprising that the report also discovered nearly all, or 90 percent, of surveyed organizations do not take potential risks into consideration when outsourcing.

It’s understandable that managers are generally more focused on improving day-to-day operations, such as customer service, identifying cost-savings opportunities and driving revenue. However, disruptions along the supply chain have the power to severely impact financial growth and overall performance.

Between natural disasters, security breaches, safety and regulatory compliance and system failures, it is virtually impossible to anticipate what will be affected and when attacks may occur. But the best approach for supply chain teams to take is implementing strategic risk management practices that will help minimize monetary losses associated with disasters.

Read more at How to recover from supply chain disruptions

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2016: The Year of Wearable Technology in the Supply Chain

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Wearable technology, and the use of cloud software, will become much more widespread across the industry in 2016. The ability to access and input data in real time is the key way in which suppliers will be able to meet the stringent demands of supermarkets.

The adoption of cloud software will be aided by the fact that the price of good quality laptops has fallen below £200, with good quality tablets available for under £50. These prices, which may fall even further in 2016, mean the bar to entry associated with cloud technology in the supply chain has been significantly lowered.

With the ability to put these powerful devices in the hands of everyone, 2015 required us at Linkfresh to think about making core lines of business software available across these devices. That sea change has laid the foundations for what we will see in the industry in 2016.

Supermarkets are pushing suppliers harder than ever, a situation which looks certain to continue throughout the coming year. Dealing with this pressure is the biggest challenge the industry faces.

Read more at 2016: the year of wearable technology in the supply chain

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5 Data-Driven Supply Chain Challenges to Overcome in 2016

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Supply chain, sourcing and procurement executives are feeling immense pressure to cope with the expansion into global markets, waves of disruptive innovation, rising customer expectations and complex regulatory requirements. These are catalysts that require supply chain management strategies to become bimodal and to make a shift from tactical to strategic.

In addition to the sourcing of goods and services, cost management and internal stakeholder compliance, executives’ responsibilities will include the ability to promote and support the top line. They have to be a trusted advisor to internal business partners and will have a tremendous impact on the success of an organization engaging with suppliers, managing relationships with strategic vendors and solving business problems.

For 2016, I see leading supply chain organizations making these top-five data-driven supply chain management challenges a priority.

1. Meet Rising Customer Expectations on Supply Chain Management

2. Increase Costs Efficiency in Supply Chain Management

3. Monitor and Manage Supply Chain Compliance & Risk

4. Make Supply Chain Traceability and Sustainability a Priority

5. Remain Agile and Flexible in Volatile Times and Markets

Read more at 5 Data-Driven Supply Chain Challenges to Overcome in 2016

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Accelerating Corporate Performance Management – Partnering Finance & Supply Chain

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Corporate Performance Management (CPM) activities time-consuming and labour-intensive, usually because they rely on spreadsheets, old data and outdated manual processes. With financial controls growing increasingly tighter, CPM must be performed effectively. Recently there has been talk of needing Finance and Supply Chain integration to achieve increased corporate performance with them now being key business partners.

The Corporate Performance Management Summit will take place on January 27 & 28, in Miami. Over the two days, the summit will gather over 120+ Finance & Supply Chain professionals to discuss the challenges related to internal performance management and external decision-making. There will be 25+ industry expert keynote speakers, interactive workshops with industry pioneers and over 8 hours of networking opportunities to take advantage of.

Ever considered how to execute performance management initiatives? How to manage external factors in performance management? Or even the role of the CFO in corporate strategy? The summit will explore hot topics such as these, as well as explicitly covering how CFOs can drive strategic performance through acquisitions and harness data to drive decision making. A key component to this summit will also be face-to-face communication and the opportunity to learn from your peers in a truly open environment. ‘The creation of a thought-sharing and interactive setting was always a key aspect for me when creating this summit,’ said Aaron Fraser, International Events Director. ‘I wanted to cultivate a forum for cross-pollination of ideas and advice for those involved in corporate performance management”.

Read more at Accelerating Corporate Performance Management – Partnering Finance & Supply Chain

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Poor Visibility Puts a Majority of Organizations at Risk for Supply Chain Disruption

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The majority of companies that experienced a supply chain disruption in the last year cited either a tier 1 or tier 2 supplier as the predominant source of the disruption, according to 2015 Supply Chain Resilience Report from the Business Continuity Institute and Zurich Insurance. Half of all respondents in the report cited a tier 1 supplier, the immediate or direct supplier, as the major source of the supply chain disruption and an additional 21% cited their tier 2 supplier, the supplier of the OEM’s tier 1 supplier.

The report also showed the majority (72%) of organizations lack full visibility into their supply chains. What is troublesome, too, is that nearly 1 in 10 (9%) of the more than 500 companies surveyed for the report do not fully know who their key suppliers are. This can no doubt make supply chain risk management even more difficult for firms that lack proper oversight on who exactly their suppliers are.

According to Thomas Kase, vice president of research at Spend Matters and an expert on supply chain risk, sometimes companies lack quality visibility and have a fragmented picture of their suppliers and what they deliver.
“The end result is a foggy mess,” Thomas said.

Read more at Poor Visibility Puts a Majority of Organizations at Risk for Supply Chain Disruption

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New Solutions for Supply Chain Risk Management: A Case Study

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We are entering an era where it is becoming possible to detect supply chain risks much more quickly. A case in point is offered by AGCO. AGCO AGCO +1.96% is a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of a wide range of agricultural equipment. In a discussion with AGCO’s Jan Theissen, Director of Strategy and Methods, and Jake Stone, Manager of Supply Chain Risk and Contract Management, I learned about this public, Atlanta headquartered corporation’s journey to improve their sourcing and supply base risk management capabilities.

AGCO’s products are marketed under a number of well-known brands, including Challenger, Fendt, GSI, Massey Ferguson and Valtra. The manufacture and assembly of their products occurs at 34 locations worldwide and historically each of these brands was managed as a separate supply chain. Further, because the company had grown by acquisition, these different supply chains used more than 10 different enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for direct sourcing.

Beginning in 2012, Mr. Theissen, a newly appointed procurement leader, led a transformation of the sourcing organization. AGCO moved from a fragmented and decentralized procurement to a centralized commodity management structure in order to better leverage buying synergies and increase the overall maturity level of this organization. Implementation of standardized roles and responsibilities, and global policies and procedures, were supported by an extensive change management program. The company formed a School of Purchasing to further develop the capabilities of the organization.

The risks associated with sourcing became part of each category manager’s job; these managers became responsible for supplier risk management, not just savings. Mr. Stone was brought into establish new, systems, processes and capabilities to manage procurement risk. One thing Mr. Stone put in place was a clear communication and escalation process to deal with risks once detected.

Read more at New Solutions for Supply Chain Risk Management: A Case Study

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Big Data: The Latest Rage in Supply Chain Management

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Early uses of big data were concentrated in two areas: customer segmentation/marketing effectiveness, and financial services, particularly in trading. Recently, supply chain has become the “next big thing.”

Why? A company’s supply chain is rich with data, and it’s also a large cost component. Combined, those facts mean that advanced analytics can become a strategic weapon for optimizing the supply chain.

However, many companies can’t see the forest for the trees. They are optimizing, but not strategically. When applying data to supply chain, it’s critical to step back and look at what truly drives business value.

“They’re Digging in the Wrong Place”

As every fan of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” knows, Indiana Jones found the Ark of the Covenant first. The Germans had far greater manpower and resources and they were more efficient, but they were competently digging a hole in the wrong place. The same goes for using big data in supply chain optimization. You could have the most efficient process in the world, but if you’re making the wrong amount of the wrong product, it will hurt your business.

Read more at Big Data: The Latest Rage in Supply Chain Management

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Global supply chain threatened by terror and flow of migrants

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Supply chains are suffering a rise in costs and multiple disruptions due to the reintroduction of border controls in Europe and the rise of radical Islam in the Middle East.

The Charted Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) – with a presence in 150 different countries – confirms that ISIS activity and Russia’s rigid attitude in world politics have contributed to the heightened risk.

Meanwhile, the migrant crisis is making some European countries close their borders, as is happening in Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia. Crossing the border in these countries can take up to 90 minutes, while other activities such as the transport of livestock have stopped entirely for several days in the past month.

This supply chain issue has caused the delivery prices for some German companies to rise by as much as 10 per cent and has increased the risk of the supply chains in other several countries of the Middle East and North Africa, such as Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey and Tunisia.

Read more at Global supply chain threatened by terror and flow of migrants

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