Digital Supply Chain Technology …… Are you leveraging it to the fullest?

“The world is a supply chain, every company has one and its backbone is technology.”

We just finished supply chain optimization projects for two middle market CPG companies. In one of the projects, we created programs that will reduce inventory by $15M and annual operating costs by $2.5M (You can read the case study here).

Both companies had realized significant growth over the past few years and their supply chains were straining to support the business.  Despite having made significant investments in technology over the past 5 years, the patchwork quilt of systems they had bolted together was busting at the seams and because of that, both companies had implemented a plethora of work around processes.  Sound familiar?   It happens in all too many middle market companies that have grown significantly and become more complex.

There are three main causes of this:

1. Rate of change of technology
2. Available capital and human resources
3. Changes to business processes that don’t leverage technology investments

Issues in the supply chain evolve slowly and manifest themselves in the form of longer lead times, excess inventory, poor customer service and deteriorating responsiveness to market needs. Companies deal with these issues through workarounds (shadow systems) that hide them for a while but ultimately make matters worse.

If these issues exist in your company, perhaps it is time to have a Supply Chain Effectiveness Assessment done on your supply chain. Our supply chain and digital technology subject matter experts focus on identifying ways to further leverage your digital supply chain assets at the intersection of people, process and technology. We pull together the right mix of supply chain subject matter experts, IT professionals, business process owners and vendors to understand the current state and make recommendations on short-medium-long term solutions that provide you the ability to see significant gains in supply chain performance and move toward a future OMNI channel state.

You can read more about our approach to supply chain optimization through our series of blog articles on the subject here.

For more information, call a supply chain subject matter expert at (909) 949-9083, send an email to info@group50.com or request more information here.

About the Author:  Jim Gitney is the CEO of Group50 Consulting. Founded in 2004, Group50 Consultants are subject matter experts in operations and global supply chains.  We understand how to leverage technology, process, organization and vendors to optimize a company’s supply chain, and we bring best practices learned from well know middle market and Fortune 500 companies. Group50 works with middle market companies to significantly improve their supply chain performance from raw materials to delivered finished goods and quote to cash.

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