Supply Chain Management
With the impending shift to more regional supply chains, spurred on by endlessly multiplying external risks, supply chain volatility has never been more common. Strong supply chain management will push your organisation forward, ensure operational resilience, and effectively manage the risks and business interruptions you might face.
Whether you want to improve your supplier vetting, selection and management processes, reform logistics, improve inventory management, better understand your chain’s Scope 3 emissions or simply buy goods and services more cost-efficiently, our supply chain consulting services can help you ensure security, resilience, and continuity of supply at reduced cost.
Getting the most out of supply chain management
Resolving supply chain issues is one of the most effective cost reduction routes to generate savings within three to six months. It starts by getting everyone on the same page: by aligning procurement with business strategy, streamlining the supplier base, using data for more sophisticated tracking and analysis of spend, and optimising the inventory mix, your organisation can supercharge its competitive positioning.
There’s also a flipside. While supply improvement offers the opportunity for significant savings, it can also be one of the largest drains on resources, particularly if ownership is fragmented. dss+ helps companies enhance supply chain management without augmenting operational risk, without business interruption, and with a plan tailored to their circumstances.
Key elements of supply chain management with dss+
- Strategic sourcing
Our fact-based approach focuses where it counts: on high-spend or high-risk contracts to improve overall value. It typically goes beyond pricing and augments the key value drivers of the supply partnership. This comprehensive approach combines innovative “clean sheet” strategies with robust tactical approaches that identify new sourcing opportunities, expanded vendor universes, thorough competitive processes, and also includes operational readiness plans. The result makes a big difference to the bottom line: typical savings range from 8% to 20% of category spend.
- Contractor management
Much like a supply chain crisis, contractor woes can also be a monumental headache. Improved commercial agreements with service providers are not enough to assure best value, as the quality and specifics of contracted services can vary greatly during delivery. Overcharges, change orders, overtime, low quality personnel and work can hammer away at what once seemed like a strong negotiated advantaged rate structure. Our aim is not to change your systems, but to build specific methods to create immediate results and a working process for continuous improvement.
- Supply chain optimisation
A lot of working capital is tied up in inventory and goods in transit. Bringing cost-efficient operations and better liquidity to life requires an effective in-bound supply chain strategy. One that determines the most efficient and cost-effective logistics, the right-sized inventory to slash slow-moving inventory and overstocks, and best practice warehousing processes. Our expertise in designing an effective in-bound supply chain operating system includes annual plans, maintenance and purchasing strategies that deliver significant cost benefits and supply chain risk mitigation.
- Supplier collaboration
With greater supply maturity comes the need for a system that continues to improve purchases of goods and services, and engineers cost out of the supplier partnership. We’ll give you that birds-eye view through a series of rapid diagnostics with your top suppliers. That way you identify efficiency gains and equitable sharing of benefits. We help you create a programme framework, train your personnel, and establish and deliver a continuous pipeline of improvement ideas for long term value generation.