Supply chain management continues to present challenges for many specialists. Although the field has radically changed and advanced over the last decade, there are still certain issues in supply chain management that you can improve upon today. Here are the three key supply chain challenges that you need to overcome:
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- Applying the Right Metrics – Many companies are simply unable to apply the right metrics in order to manage supply chains efficiently. Identifying and implementing the right metrics remains one of the most common issues in supply chain management today. Problems related to the right metrics may encompass conflicts and interminable disputes on the right metrics between different supply chains, definitions and calculations, number of metrics used, or difficulty benchmarking.
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- Prioritizing Efforts – Another important problem of supply chain management is determining where expert resources should be deployed. As a result, many organizations are confronted with serious difficulty in prioritizing supply chain improvement efforts. It is obvious that companies would like their problem solvers to work on those issues that affect their supply chain performance the most. Typical prioritizing problems are caused by a lack of standard approach, fact-based prioritization, limited skills and capabilities, or internal politics. Lack of standard approach involves the existence of several groups, each with their own methods and therefore varying outcomes. Also, skills and capabilities are often limited to certain key individuals, which do not allow them to work efficiently on the most important issues in supply chain management.
- Talent – Finding and retaining true supply chain talent is probably one of the most obvious issues in supply chain management today. Due to the evident complexity of supply chain management, experts in the field are required to have extensive and diverse knowledge of multiple disciplines. Supply chain specialists have far reaching abilities that cover planning, sourcing, distribution, manufacturing, and order management. They also need to exhibit an unwavering dedication to the field, pursue a career in this challenging sector, and have a holistic perception of supply chain. Therefore, it is not easy for organizations to find the right people, reduce attrition, and develop hiring, training, and redeployment plans.
The complexity of supply chain management is almost legendary. It is more than difficult to serve multiple customers with a wide spectrum of services and products. It all entails a sophisticated network of factories, suppliers, warehouses, customers, transporters, and more. It becomes evident why the complexity of such a network may be hard to unravel or why it is difficult to determine where and why issues in supply chain management occur. Many supply chain management practitioners are confronted with the problem of handling the complexity of the supply chain and knowing how to segment products and customers in order to maintain and develop the right supply chain strategy, process, resources, and network.
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