Tag Archives: performance

How to analyse third-party risks in the supply chain

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How to analyse third-party risks in the supply chain

How to analyse third-party risks in the supply chain

What are the cybersecurity, financial and other risks posed by third parties in the supply chain, asks Sri Rangachary, a Senior Director with ISG
Do you truly know your exposure to risk? With every third-party supplier an organisation uses, there is increased risk of being exposed to a security breach, a damaging reputational issue, or a human rights or environmental issue that could be buried within the supply chain.

We tend to think of disruptive events as happening once in a lifetime, but in reality, we should plan for them to be a regular feature of supply chains and manage them accordingly. Proper governance and rigorous supply chain review are critical.

What are the risks posed by third parties in the supply chain? The most obvious risks are cyber security or financial. Imagine if one of your supplier’s suppliers has a ransomware attack that spreads up the chain. Your security is only as strong as the weakest link in the supply chain. An event like this could severely disrupt your ability to do business.

But there are less obvious, newer risks from suppliers. Increasingly we’re seeing emerging threats from areas like environment, social and governance (ESG), and human rights.

Perhaps there are modern day slavery practices that you haven’t spotted, deeply embedded in the supply chain, or a supplier has been found guilty of corruption, or other unethical behaviour. It’s not enough anymore to claim ignorance, and you could lose your hard-won reputation by association with such practices.

You need the right processes in place to catch and head off these kinds of issues, early on.

Managing supplier relationships

The key to good supplier management is good information. What information do you need to mitigate your risk? I’m often asked: “How do I assess the risks from my supply chain?” The answer is in the information you get from that chain.

Look first at the information you have internally available. What is the acceptable risk level in your own business? Every organisation will have a different appetite for risk. A risk heat map is a great way to visualise the impact and likelihood of different risk categories, so you can develop the appropriate response.

The role of technology

It’s simply not possible for a person – or even a full team – to monitor every change and movement that could pose risk within the supply chain. This is where technology can help.

A good third-party risk management system can give you the information you need to monitor and mitigate risk, as well as keep on top of contractual commitments and the performance of your suppliers (including their ability to meet those commitments).

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The changing role of the CFO in a post-Covid-19 world

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The changing role of the CFO in a post-Covid-19 world

The changing role of the CFO in a post-Covid-19 world

Pre-Covid-19, CFOs primarily focused on reporting historical financial performance. But today, with rising logistics costs, supply chain bottlenecks, escalating input costs, and the uncertainty of sales, developing a forward-looking perspective is a must, write Chee Wee Teo, Huan Gao and Adam Mokhtee from Alvarez & Marsal.

In the months and years ahead, the CFO role must significantly evolve to keep up with the ever-changing Covid-19 environment. To be successful in the role, CFOs need to apply predictive thinking, adopt a greater strategic view, and increase their focus on forward risk assessment and contingency planning.

Develop a forward-looking perspective

Traditionally, finance teams spent 80% of their time on reporting results and 20% of their time on forecasting. In a Covid and post-Covid world, that ratio needs to shift toward a forward-looking approach that will better prepare companies to respond to unexpected events.

With this new approach, the CFO’s conversations with the CEO and the board will center on what could happen in the future. For the CFO who is accustomed to relying on historical data, this may be an uncomfortable transition, but it’s vital for the changing role of the effective CFO.

Digitize the finance function

Although digitizing processes has always been necessary for efficiency, the digitization offorecasting has become especially crucial. Leveraging digitization for predictive analytics can help anticipate challenges ahead and allow companies to stress test their business plans.

In some companies, the CFO manages the finance team while the Chief Digital Officer leads the data analytics effort. We strongly encourage the finance function to collaborate with data analytics so that the CFO can develop a predictive, forward-looking view of where the business can go.

The following should be digitization focus areas:

Customer focus:

Build a profile of key customers, their cadence in ordering products, consumption pattern and liquidity situation.

Production and inventory management:

Establish a robust production system (that captures the right production costs) all the way through to an effective sales fulfillment (that delivers the right product to customers at the right time witminimal production waste and inventory leftover). These interdependent processes are typically filled with manual touchpoints and subject to human judgement. This can be significantly augmented with digital tools to drive optimization.

Read more at The changing role of the CFO in a post-Covid-19 world

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Role of Business Intelligence in Supply Chain

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Role of Business Intelligence in Supply Chain | Bold BI

Role of Business Intelligence in Supply Chain

Supply chain management plays a vital role in the emerging world market. According to the Harvard Business Review, in 2018, the U.S. supply chain made up 37 percent of all jobs, employing 44 million people in the U.S. To stay competitive in the supply chain management business, you need to recognize the potential weaknesses of your organization and form ideas to overcome them. Business intelligence (BI) helps you identify potential risks associated with your business and enables managers to take timely corrective action. BI gives you the required organization and visualization of the data stored in your business’s data banks needed for insight into its patterns. In this blog, I am going to discuss why supply chain management needs business intelligence and how BI paves the path to the growth of your business.

Why supply chain management needs BI

  1. BI helps key decision-makers monitor internal inefficiencies and gives them the metric-driven insight to take appropriate actions to overcome these inefficiencies.
  2. BI tools, such as scorecards and dashboards, provide detailed breakdowns of reports on your company’s performance with many available metrics and KPIs. These help you monitor the progress of your company growth, like whether quarterly goals are achieved or not, as well as forecast future results based on your previous performance data.
  3. Since supply chain management involves many departments, there is a lack of visibility and lots of data spread across the departments. BI collects all of your company’s data into a single platform.
  4. With the detailed and specific data from every step of production, you can go through the process from transporting raw materials to delivering your final products to customers and strategically enhance each part.

Various aspects of BI in supply chain management

The supply chain comprises various elements, such as operations management, logistics, procurement, and IT. It acts like the wheels of a vehicle. If anyone of them fails, the entire vehicle cannot move. BI coordinate each aspect with the others and helps you to run a more successful business.

  1. Demand and inventory management
  2. Distribution and communication management
  3. Supplier and vendor association
  4. Forecasting

Bold BI’s business intelligence dashboards for supply chain management

With Bold BI’s supply chain management dashboards, you can achieve the objectives of your company by tracking the important KPIs (such as cash-to-cycle time, perfect order rate, customer order cycle time, inventory turnover), drilling down into the key metrics with a detailed analysis in every widget, and identifying the risks in your process and mitigating those risks with action plans.

Read more at Role of Business Intelligence in Supply Chain

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Transforming cold chain performance and management in lower-income countries

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Transforming cold chain performance and management in lower-income countries

Transforming cold chain performance and management in lower-income countries

In many countries, one of the common factors limiting full and equitable access to effective immunization is the existence of gaps in cold chain and logistics (CCL) systems. This article focuses on the critical contribution that better management of CCL performance can make in addressing these barriers, as well as some essential practices needed to achieve and sustain these gains. These include (i) an emphasis on continuous improvement in CCL performance indicators, (ii) strong coordination and accountability across multiple stakeholders, and (iii) making the most of limited financial resources.

This article is informed by the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s (CHAI’s) experience working with National Immunization Programs (NIPs) and immunization partners to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of CCL systems (including CCE deployment and maintenance, temperature monitoring and control, stock management and distribution) across ten Gavi-supported “focus” countries.

1. Introduction

Vaccines can dramatically reduce morbidity and mortality from many serious diseases [1], and have a high return on investment [2].1 Unfortunately, gaps in vaccine cold chain and logistics (CCL) systems are one of the common factors limiting full and equitable access to the benefits of immunization. This is because such gaps undermine the availability and potency of vaccines at the point of administration, prevent the introduction of new life-saving vaccines, and waste precious human and financial resources [3].

2. Section I: Targeting CCL performance

The vaccines CCL system is considered to be performing well when (i) the full schedule of antigens is consistently available to serve the target population, (ii) in potent condition, (iii) at an affordable cost, and (iv) with a CCL network of sufficient capacity and reach to meet current and upcoming NIP goals (e.g., new vaccine introductions) [5].

3. Section II: Three key management practices to maximize CCL performance

Once programs appropriately target CCL performance, three management practices are critical to achieve effective and sustained improvements in these KPIs.

  • 3.1. From “firefighting” to continuous improvement
  • 3.2. Better coordination and accountability
  • 3.3. Making the most of limited resources

4. Conclusion

Investing in improved CCL management is crucial to sustainably improve CCL performance and provide the maximum benefit to immunization programs. As detailed above, success will require CCL management to focus on continuously improving CCL performance, have strong coordination and accountability, and make the most of the limited resources available.

Read more at Transforming cold chain performance and management in lower-income countries

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The Partnership for Supply Chain Management Implements One Network’s Control Tower Solution

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One Network Enterprises, a global provider of multi-party digital network platform and services, recently announced that The Partnership for Supply Chain Management (PFSCM)—a nonprofit organization providing global procurement and distribution services for low- and middle-income countries—has implemented One Network’s Supply Chain Control Tower solution to advance its end-to-end supply chain visibility.

According to spokesmen, PFSCM has a long history of innovating and driving fundamental improvements in the performance of global health supply chains.

Spokesmen added that it is migrating critical requisition, order, and transportation management functions into its existing One Network Real Time Value Network (RTVN) decision-making supply chain suite.

“Our goal is to strengthen, develop, and manage secure, reliable, cost-effective, and sustainable global supply chains to improve the lives of people in underdeveloped countries,” said Richard Owens, PFSCM Director. “By extending One Network’s Control Tower capabilities on our RTVN, we can provide real-time visibility, digital collaboration, and advanced analytics to move to true data-driven decision-making. Our collaboration with One Network is central to PFSCM’s digital transformation and provides us the foundation we need to drive the next wave of innovation within global supply chains for public health.”

In an interview with SCMR, Owens said that PFSCM first conducted an internal evaluation of its existing systems, plus a landscape analysis of what potential solutions existed before making the deal.

“The evaluation produced six scenarios, consisting of different combination of three systems,” he said. “The first recommendation was to go with One Network, which was accepted first by PFSCM’s management team, and then by PFSCM’s Board, who approved the project budget last September.

Read more at The Partnership for Supply Chain Management Implements One Network’s Control Tower Solution

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Why You Don’t Need Perfect Data to Begin Implementing Sales & Operations Planning

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Royal Boon Edam a global market leader in entry solutions, was looking to shift towards a combined business model of “made to stock” and “assembly to order” – where modules which could be placed into a configuration requested by the customer would be ready for production, this meant the company needed a different logistics approach to fulfilling these orders.

An interview with Boon Edam’s Aron Waas

Implementing Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) has many benefits.

To truly leverage it to improve business performance and predictability, you need to embark on a change management process and you need the right technology to self-enable your team.

Often, teams think they also need plenty of clean and accurate data to do it right.

But starting small can pay off. We spoke with Aron Waas, Global Supply Chain Director at Royal Boon Edam International to hear about his company’s experience.

Hello Aron, can you tell me more about Boon Edam and your role as Global Supply Chain Director?

Boon Edam is a private, family-owned company that is over 140 years old. We are a manufacturer of premium entry systems, such as revolving doors and security access gates.

We have 3 factories, one in the USA, one in China and one in the Netherlands (in the city of Edam). We have over 20 sales subsidiaries and, at this stage, 3 different Distribution & Support Centers.

These centers (or D&SCs) support our sales subsidiaries with all their inquiries, service requests and the delivery of products and services.

I am part of the global management team, responsible for everything that has to do with supply chain management. The directors of our D&SCs report directly to me.

You are currently using AIMMS to enable your S&OP process. What was the driver to look for S&OP technology and how did you do things before?

We have worldwide demand for all kinds of products and services and as I mentioned before, we have 3 different factories. We were trying to optimize the workload between these factories to have our manufacturing be as efficient as possible.

We had a financial reporting tool and based on the financial forecasting of our different sales subsidiaries, we made a forecast for products and services which was translated into a monthly demand plan and a capacity plan. This process was based on a lot of assumptions.

Read more at Why You Don’t Need Perfect Data to Begin Implementing Sales & Operations Planning

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Procurement Performance Measurement in 2018

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Organizations today rely on Procurement to drive value beyond unit price savings. For Chief Procurement Officers (CPO), it is challenging to measure the performance of managers who drive these sources of value. Fair and accurate performance measurement is critical for attracting, retaining and promoting top procurement talent. In a typical procurement environment, some categories require larger efforts on cost and risk avoidance, with minor savings achievements, while other categories yield significant savings by nature of the products purchased. For some categories, securing the latest technology to enable top-line growth may far outweigh the importance of purchase price. How can the CPO assess individual category manager performance, each driving unique value, on an even playing field?

Measuring Procurement Effectiveness

In mature procurement organizations, category managers develop value-based category strategies to target underlying metrics, beyond purchase price variance (PPV), based on their unique category and/or portfolio.

Individual performance effectiveness of category managers is then based on their ability to:

  1. Effectively engage with cross-functional business stakeholders
  2. Demonstrate category expertise
  3. Develop and deliver against value-based category strategies

Building a value-based category strategy

Identify Value Drivers

Use of a Category Health Methodology, in which category managers can analyze spend and determine what types of underlying variables (or value drivers), can predict strong business results.

Translate Value Drivers into Specific Business Objectives

Category managers identify value drivers and translate those drivers into specific business objectives.

Based on these value drivers, the category manager outlines the following objectives:

  1. Dual source plastic housings in order to improve supply assurance
  2. Shift product Y to preferred supplier X
  3. Negotiate contracts with supply base in order to map cost to commodity index

Determine a Set of Quantifiable Scorecard Metrics

The final step in the process is to map the objectives to metrics that can be used to assess, and compare, the category manager’s performance against the goals laid out in their category strategy.

Read more at Procurement Performance Measurement in 2018

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How Does Your Supply Chain Resilience Rank?

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Hurricanes, earthquakes, terror and political upheaval all took a toll.

In addition, three emerging drivers of resilience have come to the forefront in recent years that are now included in the 2017 FM Global Resilience Index: the rate of urbanization, inherent cyber risk and supply chain visibility.

Resilience against events that could disrupt operations is a top priority for business executives seeking to minimize risk and maximize performance across their operations.

The ability of businesses to overcome disruptions throughout the world can make all the difference.

The FM Global Resilience Index is an annual ranking of 130 countries and territories according to their enterprise resilience to disruptive events.

Rankings are calculated as an equally weighted composite of 12 core drivers that affect the enterprise resilience of countries significantly and directly.

The historical data in this year’s index has been updated and calculated on this new basis for each of the last five years to enable valid historic comparison.

Here are the key results.

Switzerland occupies the top position in the 2017 FM Global Resilience Index. This reflects the fact that Switzerland is among the best in the world for its infrastructure and local suppliers, its political stability, control of corruption and economic productivity.

Luxembourg has risen gradually from eighth in 2013 to second in 2017, owing partly to its reduced reliance on oil for economic productivity. This reflects the continued growth in the importance of its services sector. Luxembourg enjoys a strong reputation for its financial sector, its network of service providers and its responsive, business-friendly regulations.

The country is well-placed to benefit from financial institutions that may be seeking a new home, post-Brexit, following the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union.

Read more at How Does Your Supply Chain Resilience Rank?

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Trax Expands Leadership Team With CRO Hire

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Trax Technologies, a global innovator specializing in harnessing logistics data and insights to improve supply chain performance, announced today the company has expanded its’ leadership team with the appointment of Christopher Rajiah as the Chief Revenue Officer. Rajiah is responsible for setting and executing the company’s go-to-market strategy in order to scale the organization and solidify its position as the market leader for freight audit & payment and supply chain data management.

The executive appointment follows the additions of Elizabeth Hart as CAO and Benjamin Morens as COO in 2016. The expansion of the leadership team comes as Trax Technologies experiences significant product adoption as it transforms the freight audit and payment process to improve supply chain performance. Trax provides freight audit and payment services as a cornerstone of its cloud-based logistics performance management solution combining leading controls, supply chain data management, financial classification, and business analytics to deliver accurate, meaningful and actionable intelligence to its global customers.

“Chris’s extensive experience in successfully driving and executing global sales initiatives and growing strategic partnerships will be incredibly valuable as we continue to innovate, develop new capabilities, and extend Trax’s industry leadership,” said Don Baptiste, Trax Technologies CEO. “I’m excited to have him on our team.”

Rajiah joins from Equinix, where he served as VP of Worldwide Channel Partners and Alliances. Prior to Equinix, Chris was SVP Sales & Marketing at ViaWest, as well as the Vice President of Worldwide Partner Sales at Rackspace Hosting. Chris also spent 9 years at Extreme Networks, where he started his career, and, eventually, led their North American channel and worldwide strategic alliance teams.

Read more at Trax Expands Leadership Team With CRO Hire

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Cloud-Based Analytics for Supply Chain and Workforce Performance

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Plex Systems, a developer of cloud ERP for manufacturing, has introduced two new analytic applications designed to provide manufacturers insight into supply chain performance and their workforce.
The new Supply Chain and Human Capital analytic applications build on the library of applications in the IntelliPlex Analytic Application Suite, a broad suite of cloud analytics for manufacturing organizations.

The Plex Manufacturing Cloud is designed to connect people, processes, systems and products in manufacturing enterprises. The goal is not only to streamline and automates operations, but also enable greater access to companywide data. The IntelliPlex suite of analytic applications aims to turn that data into configurable, role-based decision support dashboards–with deep drill-down and drill-across capabilities. The IntelliPlex Analytic Application Suite includes analytics for sales, order management, procurement, production and finance professionals.

IntelliPlex Supply Chain Analytic Application
The new IntelliPlex Supply Chain Analytic application provides a dashboard for managing strategic programs, such as enterprise supplier performance, inventory and materials management and customer success. Metrics include:

  1. On-time delivery and return rates by supplier, part, material, etc.
  2. Production backlog by part group, product time, etc.
  3. Spend by supplier and type, including unapproved spend
  4. Inventory turns and aging based on type, location, etc.
  5. Materials management accuracy, adjustments and trends by type, location, etc.
  6. On-time fill rate, customer lead time, average days to ship, fulfillment by location

Read more at Cloud-Based Analytics for Supply Chain and Workforce Performance

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