Despite the fact that their net income went down 19% in Q1, clothing manufacturer Ralph Lauren still managed to improve their profit margin, partly due to savings in their supply chain, logistics and sourcing departments, according to a posting in International Freighting Weekly.
Interested in seeing the same results? Utilizing software to manage your supply chain can help you save thousands by ensuring visibility, allowing effective communication with carriers and suppliers, and promoting optimal decisions related to inventory diversion and bottleneck resolution.
According to a recent supply chain study, visibility and environmental responsibility are the two areas that could use the most improvement. A write-up of the results in Supply & Demand in Executive reports that two-thirds of supply chain and operations professionals have marginal or no visibility across all tiers and levels of their value chain. Please read the full story here.
Concerned that you fall into this group? Try using a software solution to optimize your supply chain visibility.
President Obama’s proposed health care plan will present some new supply chain challenges to the medical industry if it goes into effect. One of the main goals of the President’s plan is to “assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans.” This would have a significant effect on the supply chains of medical companies. With more people receiving health care, the demand for medical devices and pharmaceuticals will go up. Health care companies must be able to handle this growth by expanding their supply chains as necessary, and ensure that operations are running as efficiently as possible, while keeping costs down. Logistics Management raises this point in their analysis of UPS’s recent survey of health care professionals. Eighty-one percent of respondents said that they were highly concerned about managing costs and, according to the analysis, this is due to the pending health care legislation.
I won’t get in to the political debate on the pros and cons of this plan, but I will say that now would be a good time for health care companies to start implementing supply chain best practices and techniques to ensure they are ready when change starts happening.
Even though most corporations have implemented cost-cutting measures in recent months, one trend remains prevalent. MFGWatch conducted a survey on more than 200 purchasing professionals and engineers in the manufacturing industry, and 69% said that in the past year they had maintained or grown sourcing. Here’s Logistics Today’s analysis of the survey results: 2008 Sourcing Needs Stayed Steady, 2009 Big Moves are on Hold
In order to reap the cost-saving benefits of sourcing from all over the world, it is important to have an efficiently managed supply chain. Using a software solution such as Management Dynamics can ensure that you are communicating efficiently with all of your trading partners.
One industry where having a well-managed supply chain may matter just a little bit more is the food and beverage industry. For grocery stores and restaurants who require fresh food to run their businesses properly, it’s important that their supply chains are handled in the most efficient way possible. This article on SupplyChainBrain.com gives five basic steps organizations can take to overcome the common challenges associated with managing a fresh food supply chain: Transforming Your Fresh Food Supply Chain.
While the steps mentioned in the article can all be taken internally, companies should also consider the value of using a software solution such as Management Dynamics to streamline the global supply chain. A solution such as this would help to ensure communication with suppliers and carriers, and would allow the optimal decisions to be made regarding inventory diversion and bottleneck resolution.
Lately, there have been two big corporate trends we’ve been hearing a lot about. The first is to conserve the environment by “going green.” The second, in light of current economic conditions, has been to re-evaluate spending, and cut costs where ever possible. One would not immediately think that these two things could go hand-in-hand. However, it is possible for both principles to be successfully applied to the supply chain. A more efficiently-run supply chain can lead to less waste, less fuel, and lower costs. This article from Industry Week discusses the idea of controlling supply chain costs through the synergies involved in being green: Can You Have a Lean-Green-Global Supply Chain?
Despite the recession, Apple has once again topped AMR’s Top 25 Supply Chain list, followed by Dell, P&G, IBM, and Cisco Systems. AMR Research defines three broad principles that weigh into the ranking of these supply chains: supply management (manufacturing, logistics and sourcing), demand management (marketing, sales, and service), and product management (R&D, engineering and product development). An organization’s overall rank was determined by how successful they are at achieving and integrating all three.
Interestingly enough, a few of those top-ranked companies use Management Dynamics for their global trade management needs. P&G uses Supply Chain Visibility for Shippers to ensure visibility, communicate with carriers and suppliers, and make optimal sourcing decisions.
Here’s an intersting article that originally appeared in the very first issue of Supply Chain Management Review, back in 1997, and again in 2007: The 7 Principles of Supply Chain Management. The article, written by experts from Andersen Consulting (currently Accenture), starts out by giving seven tips on managing the supply chain, and then goes into detail on strategies companies can take to achieve those principles. It’s a great read and provides some useful best practices, so go check it out!
AMR Research recently reported that the apparel industry is investing less on IT programs than it has in previous years, possibly due to the bad economy. The lack of spending is most prevalent in ERP systems, and in systems aimed at establishing and maintaining an end-to-end global supply chain. According to a report in Supply Chain Management Review, this indicates that companies in this industry do not respect the value and potential cost-savings of a well-run supply chain.
“That includes even basic supply chain management processes and functions. Often, he said, apparel companies, rather than adopting a unified, holistic approach to the supply chain, spend time plugging holes here and there with short-term, one-shot fixes that lead to a scattershot supply chain, at best.
Aquino said this is problematic in the best of times, but with the recession crushing markets worldwide, the current supply chain model that most apparel manufacturers’ use is outdated and inflexible, and could ultimately lead to disaster.”
So while the do-it-your-self approach might be an effective cost-cutting measure in the short term, companies will inevitably begin to see the negative effects over time. The good news is that this problem can easily be avoided. Check out this Traffic World article on how one well-known retailer was able to overcome a lack in visibility with an investment in a Supply Chain Visibility solution.
Please go here to read SCMR’s full analysis of the survey findings.
Recently, SupplyChainBrain.com reported on the results of a survey of executives from 140 companies in the U.S., Germany and Japan, done by Microsoft and Infosys. Some key findings of the survey are below:
Half reported greater supply chain complexities, yet a lack of visibility
A number of respondents claimed that it could take hours before a supply chain disruption was even reported
More than half reported a higher number of products, stock-keeping units, suppliers, production locations, demand channels and geographies for their sale of products
Despite current economic conditions, 40% of respondents said that they expect their supply chains to become even more complex by 2010
“The economy may be down, but the number of products, suppliers and geographies that high-tech manufacturers have to manage has gone way up,” said Tyler Bryson, general manager of U.S. manufacturing and resources with Microsoft. “This complexity has made it difficult for firms to discover disruptions and act quickly, and this is becoming an increasingly serious industry issue.”
Employing a software solution such as Management Dynamics can help combat these issues. The article states that a large portion of respondants spent 25% of their time searching for and reworking supply chain data, to achieve the desired format and level of detail. A software solution could simplify that process significantly, saving a lot of time and reducing the number of errors.
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Lately, there have been two big corporate trends we’ve been hearing a lot about. The first is to conserve the environment by “going green.” The second, in light of current economic conditions, has been to re-evaluate spending, and cut costs where ever possible. One would not immediately think that these two things could go hand-in-hand. However, it is possible for both principles to be successfully applied to the supply chain. A more efficiently-run supply chain can lead to less waste, less fuel, and lower costs. This article from Industry Week discusses the idea of controlling supply chain costs through the synergies involved in being green: 
AMR Research