The current situation of Pandemic has paused all the businesses around the world. While the situation is totally unexpected no one had plan precautions to overcome the same. The major disruptions are being faced by the Supply chain as the inventory already stored is not being used which is increasing business cost without any returns. The blog ahead will help you to know about the current impact and future trends in Supply Chain Management. Supply chains cover everything from production to product development to the information systems needed to direct these undertakings. It consists of 5 parameters which are as under:
– The plan or strategy
– The source (of raw materials or services)
– Manufacturing (focused on productivity and efficiency)
– Delivery and logistics
– The return system (for defective or unwanted products)
The supply chain manager tries to minimize inventory shortage and costs of production. Improvements in productivity and efficiency go straight to the bottom line of a company and have a real and lasting impact.
The overall goal of supply chain management is to reduce inventory without compromising service levels and make manufacturing as lean as possible.
More specifically, supply chain management in manufacturing focuses to do two things one is Track the movement of physical products over time and location & Link those physical dimensions to broader business data structures.
Impact of Pandemic on Supply chain Management
Several times over the last few weeks, it has been heard of 2020 being referred to as a bad movie with a particularly grim storyline. The repercussions of COVID-19 outbreak are being felt more strongly with every passing day, the virus continues to rampage unchecked across the globe, causing loss of life and hitting businesses across industries and verticals. Effect on supply chain is no less which has impacted running of the business
The impact of supply chain on business is mentioned as follows:
– As per survey, conducted by institute of Supply chain management nearly 75% of companies reported disruptions due to coronavirus
– As per Business Insider, due to block in supply chain logistics costs currently account for up to 14% of India’s gross domestic product.
– 50% of the companies also reported experiencing sudden, unexpected delays in receiving raw materials which resulted into delay of orders.
– 55% labors have financially suffered due to low inventory and dead stock. 
– 96% of labors from garment industry said that they got no food, rations and advance payment of wages or loans from their employer due to zero manufacturing.
– Global brands and retailers are cancelling orders from their supplier factories as government are imposing restrictions on travel and gatherings.
– Also, it has been observed that due to impact on supply chain, women and girls working in the sector such as garment manufacturers are heavily impacted. This has adversely affected on their education, food security and nutrition, health and livelihoods.
Supply Chain Management: Future World
A modern, digital supply chain makes it easier to do business in general, it reduces manufacturing costs and in time will help accelerate consumption growth in both urban and rural areas, through better access to goods and services – vital in a country as geographically spread out as India. Some key elements, that will prove crucial in the supply chains of tomorrow include:
Intelligent procurement: To help organizations understand where and when to source using advanced machine learning algorithms based on past purchases, commodity pricing, agro and industrial trends, among others.
Supply chain control tower: A single source of truth from sourcing to delivery for all trading partners to see and adapt to changing demand and supply scenarios across the world.
Supply chain data management with intelligent automation and analytics: End-to-end information management, taking the form of a data vault of sorts to capture supply chain transactions accurately with high consistency and minimum redundancy. This will help supply chain organizations gather insights around supplier performance, supply chain diagnostics, market intelligence and risk management.
Supplier risk management: Risk management tie-ups helping organizations in model cost structures, trend performance data and visibility in to extended value chain to keep abreast of any supply disruptions and secure capacity. This could help companies avoid sudden disruptions in supply chain and deal with lack of information.
Supply chain simulation: Modeling new supply chain strategies based on business/operating model change, current and/or future supply/demand/logistics constraints. Helps to validate and identify the best cost-efficient network to achieve the necessary service level across the value chain.
Lean supply chain management: Primitive reporting structures might no longer work, and this has led to an emergence of matrix structures within supply chain set-ups. Candidates with experience of working in such an environment, especially with exposure to global stakeholders, are heavily in demand.
Time is new currency: Customers are looking for the services which helps in reducing time and easy delivery, business will need to change their operations by being more agile, plan outcomes giving more personal touch and predicting what may come next.
Strengthen Supply Chain Transparency and Disclosure: Enhanced transparency will support supply chain leaders in the case that global trade is transformed by political shifts toward economic nationalism and will be valuable should free trade continue. Improving the quality and scope of supply chain disclosure will enable practitioners to stand ready.
Data is the new hero: The modern supply chain is that it generates huge amounts of data. And IoT-enabled supply chains that utilize data analytics tools will be essential to transforming India’s supply chain moving forward. Being able to react quickly to real-time data at all points of the supply chain will be a benefit: inventory levels, point-of-sale information, consumer buying habits, even fluctuations in freight costs or raw materials will all play a role.
Build Responsible Regional Sourcing Hubs: Supply chain managers will have an opportunity to develop nimble, regional supplier networks that can meet both commercial expectations and sustainability aspirations.
Digitalize Supplier Assessment and Engagement: With more data about supply chains produced and disseminated than ever before, supply chain leaders have the opportunity to rethink how they collect and interpret supply chain information. PwC has also found that 67 percent of businesses today “consider digital supply chain disruptive and important” and that 40 percent of APAC companies have already deployed technologies like collaboration tools and supply chain analytics to enhance supply chain operations. Digital supply chain will help in reducing logistics costs and increasing business efficiencies
Benefits of new supply chain management:
The new supply chain management will help to grow organizations in many ways:
Speeding up execution: As the new supply chain management will be data driven and will focus on more in time inventory, it will help the businesses in speeding the manufacturing process and deliver the end product.
Flexibility: New supply chain management will be ready to overcome any unexpected hurdle coming on the way of businesses and so it will not hamper the manufacturing unit of the businesses which will help them in managing their average profits.
Efficiency: As the businesses will be needed to work with minimum inventory, there would be extra care while manufacturing the product which would result in the minimum wastage and maximum production efficiency.
Prime areas of concern:
As discussed above, to conquer the challenges faced due to ongoing pandemic, businesses need to change the supply chain managing process. Below mentioned points will help in understanding the key steps which businesses should follow to adopt the change:
Planning: The most important step while changing the supply chain management is to first check how to use the already stocked inventory, meanwhile planning how to change different areas of the process to make the new change adoptive for the team.
Understand priorities: As the cash flow in the businesses are very tight, supply chain manager should plan out the inventory storing in a way that every manufacturing department gets the required raw material yet there is no access of raw materials in store.
Data Storage: All the data required to run the businesses should be updated and reviewed timely to know the status of the project to manage the inventory and smoothly run the supply chain process.
Conclusion:
The impact has really hit hard, it is necessary for businesses to adopt the new normal and be the part of change. New supply chain management will help the organizations in learning agile, lean and data-oriented business. A digital supply chain will be future of India as Digitization can help India take our supply chains to the next level and drive major reductions in costs, which will in turn power an increase in annual revenues. Summing up it would be advisable for all the businesses to adopt changes in the supply chain management and create a new era to manage business profits.
Authors:
Saloni Surani, a Strategic Business Consultant, who pursued her Masters in Management & has an eclectic experience in J.Hirani with various industries like Manufacturing, Real Estates, Hospitality, FinTech, etc. She is a keen observer who silently achieves her goals and happily surprises everyone with the results. Adapting & learning new things has been her forte which helps her in getting new ideas always, anyone who wants to refresh their Values- just look at her.
Heli Shah, an MBA graduate is associated with J.Hirani as a Business Analyst. She is fresh soul with humble and optimistic approach who is working in different industries like Manufacturing, Retail, and Hospitality etc. Flexibility and greediness in learning new things helps her to conquer the challenges coming on her way.
About J.hirani: J.hirani is a Strategic Transformation team which works as a growth partner for different organisations in various industries by providing services like Agile transformation, Scenario mapping, Strategic alignment, Balance scorecard, Digital transformation, Incubating new ventures, Operation excellence and Aligning human capital.
©J.hirani, Supply Chain – Manufactures creating new Brave ERA post Covid-19! , July 2020. All rights reserved
