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Supply chain: 6 tips to improve your practices

We are finding that our customers' supply chains are under increasing strain. Long and uncertain lead times, shortage markets, demand that is harder to anticipate, more demanding customers, financial pressure on inventories...

In this article, we've put together 6 tips for improving the efficiency of your supply chain, drawn from our experience in the field, to help you successfully transform your function. Supply Chain.

1. Base your analysis on figures

Take a look at your business by the numbers: shipments, inventory, lead times, product segmentation, customer segmentation, customer request processing times...
Visualizing these figures and discussing them with your teams will enable you to define a common language to set your priorities and steer your progress plans.

2. Clarify your external and internal customers' expectations

Listen to your internal and external customers (interviews, vis-ma-vie) to better understand their expectations and constraints.
Start by accepting this feedback, even if it seems unfair, and then objectivize expectations and problems by means of quantitative analysis. This will help you distinguish the important from the trivial.

3. Work on your teams' posture

Define the services you want to deliver to your customers, and what it means to excel in your business. This will help your teams understand their roles and act with greater autonomy and proactivity.
You'll need to set up indicators to monitor your actions, and review certain business management rules. It's also here that you'll assess your skills development and training needs.

4. Activate your supplier levers

Set up periodic reviews to discuss your suppliers' performance.
Define priorities that correspond to your markets. Review these priorities, as they may change according to corporate strategy, the geopolitical situation, or legislative constraints.

You can take action at various levels, including :

during contract negotiations, by specifying your logistical and environmental expectations, or the terms and conditions for managing penalties in particular.
by working on your operational relations to communicate more effectively, plan escalation mechanisms, be more present... or urgent.
expanding your supplier panel through dual sourcing, shared markets or investment partnerships.

5. Think deadlines and variability

It's essential to measure your supply and processing times, and to identify variability in these times.

Anticipating delays and creating alerts enables you to solve problems or limit their consequences.
Simplify your teams' work and help them prioritize by starting with simple indicators and setting up daily alerts and roadmaps.

6. Iteratively upgrade your skills

Iterating can bring immediate benefits, but above all it allows you to better understand your real needs. Iterating often means accepting to carry out certain actions manually and temporarily on reduced perimeters, or developing tools with a limited lifespan.

Another beneficial effect of rapid iteration is the obligation to actually work with your dataThis will enable you to identify gaps in terms of availability, completeness and consistency. The earlier you iterate, the more mature you'll be when it comes to positioning yourself on new technologies and framing your needs during digital transformation transformation projects.

These 6 tips are part of a strategy to develop a culture of excellence in procurement, where the ability to anticipate needs, proactively manage risks and collaborate effectively with the various stakeholders becomes a competitive advantage. They position Supply Chain leaders as contributors to the organization's overall strategy, capable of dynamically aligning their teams according to market conditions, operational constraints and strategic orientations.