Category: supply chain
Does your supply chain process serve your organization’s local mission?
Thinking Globally, Acting Locally
A well-integrated supply chain links a firm to vendors everywhere, allowing people to immediately see the least-expensive suppliers, the fastest shipping points and the highest-quality products, often all at once. However, for all the wonders of the global marketplace made real, they’re almost irrelevant to an emergency room doctor treating a car crash victim, a master chef pushing four orders of Beef Wellington out of the kitchen door or a special education teacher working with a troubled child.
The supply chain is a tool to help solve problems. But every organization has its own unique problems to solve.
Organizations look at global technology as a means to solve very local problems. A hospital CIO in an economically disadvantaged community needs technology to help serve its poor patients cost-effectively.
That chef might care about being able to source the best ingredients worldwide, but will be more concerned about executing the perfect meal for the people in front of her. Supply chain management for a school has to serve the needs of the student.
The bells and whistles of globalization matter less than delivering on the core mission.
Insights
- Engaging local organizations (e.g., chambers of commerce) to increase insight into local capabilities.
- Would like to see Economic Impact tied to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and workforce impact.
- The ability to quickly see how many local resources are available for a given opportunity.
With 5G networks around the corner, what do you need mobile supply chain technology to accomplish for you?
There’s An App For That
Everyone has a smartphone. Mobile applications are ubiquitous, and mobility in the supply chain has grown beyond the debates about the best way to use an RFID chip.
SupplierGATEWAY supports an app… because we know that’s how people do business today. Consider the value of providing single-use security credentials to a client based on their physical location, or instantly pulling up warranty information on a broken tool, or finding a specialized supplier while out backpacking on a camping trip.
Change seldom arrives without apprehension and resistance in tow. We had a recent experience with a client who worried that their users wouldn’t have faith in a smartphone app to conduct critical procurement business. Fortunately, they are finding their fears to be mostly misplaced. Still, the intelligence of a system living in the cloud and not on a device remains hard to grasp at times.
The technology faces other challenges. Mobile security – particularly in a Bring Your Own Device environment – may be the most serious issue. Maintaining quality of service can be dependent on outside factors. Discovering and provisioning web services over traditional networks remains a challenge. However, the advent of 5G mobile networks will dramatically reduce these problems.
Insights
- “Anything I can do on my desktop, I need to be able to do on my phone.”
How do you add more value to your organization when new supply chain technology changes the game?
Making Technology Work For You
We think of automation as a threat to jobs on factory floors and in customer call centers, but most people – 65 percent of Americans according to a recent Pew survey — believe automation is coming for almost everyone eventually.
Job displacement is an old problem for people who work in technology, of course. Globalization means tech staffers often have to fight to demonstrate their value to the enterprise over a captive center or third-party vendor. Integration projects are risky all on their own; half fail, and often cost people their jobs. Moreover, IT staff can view a successful upgrade as a job threat. This can put IT staff at odds with innovation. A system that suddenly requires half as many software engineers or database administrators can present disincentives to adoption.
This isn’t a technology problem. It’s a management problem.
Enterprises should be looking for ways to derive maximum value from their staff. A software engineer would probably add more value to the organization by developing new applications than fixing code. A database administrator might help the team more by enabling Big Data analysis than simply making sure the servers are up and running. Adopting something new, like a cloud-enabled logistics service, can provide breathing room for staff to align their work more closely with the things that make money.
Insights
- Mobility – Due to the increasing reliance on mobile devices, it would be preferred if as much functionality as possible is available in the mobile app (compared to the web version) so users can complete their transactions in the app rather than having to switch in mid-process.
- Sharing with Peer Groups – Provision for establishing affinity groups for sharing information.
- Trending – Indicators for vendors that have been recommended or shared.
