Having a robust Supply chain management is everything that a business need to make or mare the growth of every resources put together in a bid to help an entity achieve its economic goals.
I know many of my readers are warming up with their inbox messages challenging my assertion in the title of this post, but read through before making that move.
What is supply chain?
I would like to briefly establish a working definition of supply chain for the purpose of this post as “the coherent acts of actors in moving goods and services from point of origination to point where it is required by the end users”.
Notice that the means of delivering the goods or services to the end user is not mentioned in the above definition. This is so because many medium of executing supply chain may come up tomorrow but this definition will still remain valid and relevant.
It is that simple, you haven’t done anything if you have not moved your products or services to its intended end users.
Importance of supply chain management
I will summarize the importance of supply chain under four headings below:
- Achievement of objective(s): the number one objective of any business is to make money and this can only be achieved if whatever a business deals on gets to the intended end users. Goods and services only get to the end users through one form of supply chain or the other. Goods lying the warehouse for long is waste.
- Saves cost through efficient implementation of processes: efficient supply chain management saves tremendous cost. This is a secret that successful businesses have long discovered and still keeps as a secret.
- Building and improving brand equity: Amazon as a company has attained its current height of enviable brand equity because it invested in its supply chain management model to the extent that people gets their order same day through a scheme known as Amazon Prime.
- Ultimate survival: a business that is struggling can easily turnaround its fortune by simply improving on its supply chain strategies.
Can my business survive using broken supply chain model?
Your business starts dying the day you start operating on broken supply chain. It is that simple! All efforts put into producing a product or service if the eventual end user don’t get the service or product in the exact desired format and shape. This has nothing to do with the level of demand for a company’s product.
A company with millions of order that cannot be delivered is worse-off than a company with thousands or even hundreds of orders but delivers all.
What exactly is my take on supply chain management?
My stand on supply chain management is simple ‘take it seriously because getting it right is a serious business’. I also tell people that investing in systems that would better supply chain business is a no brainer as there is huge potential in the supply chain market that yet to be tapped into by investors. After all what is an investment if not the act of putting resources into a cause with the hope of getting returns?
Those that were warming up to attack the title of this article about supply chain being everything in business. I hope I have been able to convince you that the headline cannot be any truer than stated.
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