As Peter Drucker, famously said, “The purpose of any business is to create a customer.” As the focus from Suppliers is shifting to Buyers, the Businesses today are realizing that in order to be successful in the marketplace, they need to strengthen the Customer Focussed Supply Chain or Outside-In supply chain model. The outside-In supply chain cannot be successful if the bridge between the Enterprise and the Customer continues to be manual and slow. As a result the corporations, which are largely driven by Enterprise Focussed supply chain, have to transition themselves into customer focussed platforms where information from customers can be sensed through the platform and plowed back into the system to enhance the speed of delivery and the overall customer delivery experience. This trend has started showing especially in E-commerce supply chains and would soon follow in other segments B2B supply Chains.
Customer Focussed Supply Chain
The overall customer delivery experience would take into account these four critical elements ~ Speed, Cost, Efficiency, and sensitivity. And these elements are an outcome of a mix of strategy, technology, people, and systems. In an environment of continuous change, the right combination and strong coordination among these parts will create an agile and responsive supply chain which, ultimately, will enrich the consumers.
As markets are changing from a predictable demand state to a highly unpredictable demand state, a fully integrated supply chain is the need of the hour. But the understanding of the subject within the practitioner’s fraternity is limited. People and organizations are busy operating in their silos. But this operating style may not sustain itself for longer especially in a customer focussed era.
There exists a great deal of opportunity at every level for the deployment of the right technology. Whether it is the collaboration with the customers and partners or re-hashing delivery models, Technology is helping organizations in creating a unified network and bridging the gap between demand and supply. Technology is not only enhancing the efficiency of Supply Chains, it is also enhancing the speed of delivery and making it more responsive. Analytics is becoming instrumental in identifying de-coupling points for organizations. This will go a long way in enhancing the overall delivery experience to the customer. However, the right set of people would have to be inducted to create and implement this change. And as a start, a great deal of shift in the thought process of the organizations would be required to effect this overall change.
Watch out for this section for more on Logistics Cost and its various dimensions!
Mansingh Jaswal is the Founder Director & Chief Executive Officer of Genex Logistics (Genex LogiSolutions Pvt. Ltd.), having a professional experience of over 17 years in Supply Chain, Logistics, Transportation, and International Freight and a Strategic Management Research Scholar at Management Development Institute (MDI).
He can be reached at mj@genexlog.com or contacted at +91981040443