“Adapt or die,” said coach Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt, in the 2011 film Moneyball. In context, coach Beane of the Major League Baseball team, the Oakland Athletics, was pioneering a radical change in baseball. He was running his team based on data-driven analytics as opposed to gut instincts. This change went against conventional thinking and would go on to revolutionize not only his team, but the entire world of baseball.
Over the past few years, the same words have echoed through board rooms across the world. Technological advancements have brought record-breaking speeds of change. These have been compounded by the Amazon Effect and COVID-19, both of which forced companies to rethink global and local trade. While this has brought to light countless insights, perhaps none is more clear: supply chain adaptability is key to success.
To succeed in the midst of volatile global markets, companies must ensure maximum adaptability in their supply chains. Here are 5 moves that your company can make to make your supply chain more adaptable:
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Digitize
Digitization is the key to supply chain agility and adaptability. End-to-end digitization of supply chain management allows companies to implement changes at the click of a button. Far too many companies are in the dark when it comes to the location of their products in the supply chain. That is because they’re still using antiquated technology: pen and paper (or their only slightly more modern counterpart, email and Excel).
Adapting to an ever-changing supply chain with manual process management is a recipe for mistakes. Plus a slow rate of change leaves companies lagging behind competitors. Therefore, finding the right end-to-end supply chain management software should be at the top of any company’s to-do list.
Digitization enables companies to easily share information across departments, and with supply chain partners. This leads very nicely to our next point — the importance of visibility.
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Increase Visibility
The adage that you’re only as strong as your weakest link holds true in supply chains. When there’s a problem in your supply chain, companies need to have visibility for every link.
In today’s complex logistical environment, there are often multiple buyer-supplier relationships within one chain. Many companies only see one tier of this, namely the one closest to the end product. This is because their data is often siloed across multiple different systems, businesses, and geographical regions.
However, a problem at any point in the chain is a problem for the whole company. By integrating multiple apps and capturing data, companies can eliminate data silos, increase communications, and gain visibility over every link of the chain. In today’s competitive world, companies need real-time information on the status of incoming raw materials, and the delivery of end products to customers.
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Gain Access to Carrier Networks
For years, companies maintained relationships with one or two carriers. Most of the time, this was out of convenience. Onboarding new carriers was time consuming.
Today, multi-carrier shipping software allows immediate access to thousands of carrier rates. This empowers companies to become vendor agnostic, optimizing for the greatest price, rather than merely sticking with the status quo for the sake of convenience.
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Streamline Trade Compliance
With the volatility of international markets, it’s not uncommon for businesses to need to pivot to take new regulations into account. Furthermore, denied party lists (DPLs) of people and groups with whom it is illegal to trade change very frequently.
When working through trade compliance manually, human errors are likely. However, when using global trade compliance software, trade compliance is streamlined, allowing businesses to adapt to new markets quickly, all while complying with complex government regulations.
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Partner with Industry Experts
To remain adaptable, businesses need to be able to have the foresight to expect the unexpected, a skill that is honed over years. Every business has specific core competencies, and trying to add “supply chain experts” to that list may not be feasible. By partnering with an industry expert, any business can have the wisdom of decades on their side, helping to navigate uncharted territories with confidence.
At QAD Precision GTTE, our team is here to help with supply chain needs so that businesses can rest assured that products will move through the supply chain even in the most turbulent times.
Schedule a consultation with our experts today.
