Aligning Supply Chains with Real Customer Needs

Organisations exist because there is an unmet customer demand. The value chain of an organisation is viable only if it meets the customer needs. An ill organised  & fragmented supply chain leads to dissatisfied customer experience of the organisation.

The alignment of supply chain to meet the customer needs of time, cost, quality & service is the basis of competition. The article offers a good insight into the alignment parameters for Supply Chain to meet the real customer needs.

Comments

  1. vmiJune 12, 2011 at 12:07 PM

    I totally agree that customer need is the enter of any supply chain improvement plan. Anyway, some organization pay too much attention to cost reduction that eventually decrease service to customer.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Five Point 'Profit Protection Plan'

Business cycles come & go. And if history is any evidence then the cycles also get 'repeated'. The nature of the cycles undergoes a time frame change & a characteristic change although the broader 'structure' remains the same. Arguably the goal of the organization also shows continuity over the history & the overarching goal although is 'creating / preserving stakeholder value' the more commonly understood goal is 'Profit' . The current industry cycle seems to be of demand contraction hence decelerating revenues & profits. I was wondering what may constitute a 'Profit Protection Plan' for organizations. My five point agenda for Profit Protection is; a. Target Volume - It is unlikely that one enterprise has a capacity which exceeds more than quarter of the total market demand. Need to redefine markets & start selling more to the ones who you didn't sell. b. Price - Think 'service'. This is where the
Read more

Supply Chain KRI's (Key Risk Indicators) as a lead practice for improving Supply Chain Performance

In the evolution of enterprises, there comes a point in time when the circumstances lead to rethink the future course. I think Covid-19 has offered that, for those who wish to chart that course. Covid-19 has proven that the frequency at which Supply Chains are being impacted, due to unforeseen events, has increased to almost once every decade on a large scale. Coupled with the fact that Industry cycles have shrunk. With all the uncertainty arisen out of Covid-19, I am sure many enterprises have been working on how much would the Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) be impacted. Why enterprises? Even a country like China is thinking of its most important KPI - GDP growth rate - to be a number or a landscape / direction to be shared. In short, the stakeholders of Supply Chains are predominantly drawing on the KPI achievements factoring in for variations based on how Covid-19 unfolds. As a Supply Chain practitioner, I appreciate enterprises have spent lot of resources in designing the
Read more

The 'Adaptive' organisation

A lot is being said & pondered over the nature of the environment in which enterprises operate. The current environment is considered to be 'chaotic'. The 'Alignment' of the enterprise with the customer is considered to be the most important mantra for success.  I wonder what does alignment mean in the context where the environment is chaotic & the customer hence is not static. In my opinion organisations need 'dynamic alignment'. Organisations which are able to know the ingredients of what makes up for alignment & continuously gauge the shifts in the environment to keep themselves abreast with the latest parameters of alignment would be successful. Dynamic alignment needs 'Adaptive Organisations'. Adaptive organisations is a function of the People. It's your workforce. They way it is  recruited, developed, appreciated or rejected. Encouraged to take up new tasks. How is your workforce respected, trusted & celebrated.I think
Read more