After the supply chain challenges of the past several years, many businesses are looking for strategies that will allow them to optimize their supply chains, improve resiliency, and ensure that they are prepared for whatever the future may hold. Are you interested in building supply chain resilience and optimizing your supply chain for whatever lies ahead? Make sure you take these key elements into consideration.
Take a close look at your current suppliers. You may need to ask yourself several key questions about their overall performance and capability to get a better idea of what they are offering your company and how that may need to change. Ask:
Once you have evaluated what your current suppliers have to offer, you can better determine whether you may need to add other suppliers, change your current contracts, or shorten your supply chain.
You need robust technology in place that will allow you to monitor and manage your supply chain as needed. That may include software that will allow you to take care of a number of key factors.
Your technology is one of the most important parts of optimizing your supply chain. With the right technology, you can better track the performance of your suppliers, keep up with your inventory needs, and maintain a higher level of transparency into your supply chain needs.
Having a single supplier for any essential item means that when challenges arise, you can find yourself stuck. For example, suppose that you have a single supplier for a vital component in manufacturing several of your products. If something happens that delays those shipments on their way to you, from weather delays to a driver shortage, you may not be able to take care of any of your manufacturing needs.
On the other hand, if you have multiple suppliers, while you may have to allocate resources carefully, you can keep your business moving smoothly, which means you will be in a better position to keep your customers happy.
Supplier diversity is critical to ensuring smooth functioning and providing you with options when potential disasters hit. While you don’t want to spread your orders too thin, which could mean that you miss vital discounts, you do want to have enough suppliers to ensure that you have a steady stream of goods moving into your business.
If you want to optimize your supply chain, it’s essential that you plan to manage ordering. You need a concrete plan in place: not just one that covers your regular orders, but also one that can provide you with more information about your ongoing ordering needs.
The planning process is critical to ensuring that your supply chain keeps moving steadily throughout the year, with no major problems that could prevent you from achieving your goals.
At StockIQ, we offer the technology solutions you need to help optimize your supply chain. We can help provide greater insights into supplier performance, help you carefully track the inventory you have on hand and the inventory you may need in the future, and provide essential information about your ordering trends and future needs. Contact us today to learn more.
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