Strengthening Your Supply Chain
Enterprises, big and small, were all affected by the disruption in the supply chain. While large enterprises could mitigate some of these challenges with their established contingency plans, ample reserves and mature technology systems, the small and medium organizations bore the brunt. SMEs must always operate on their heels and cannot afford to carry excessive reserves. Moreover, in the event of disruption, SMEs lack the ability to react swiftly to build mitigation plans or explore alternatives.
Small and mid-sized organizations can take several steps to improve the resilience of their supply chain. Adopting the right technology solutions along with these strategies can enhance the ability to navigate cyclicity and disruptions effectively. Organizations deal with various conundrums and those who get the right balance between these, run sustainably and successfully.
When planning for contingency, it is easier to say that one should diversify their vendor base to reduce dependence on single or small sets of suppliers. If you diversify too much, you may need to forgo relationships. On the other hand, fewer vendors with stronger relationships can be hugely beneficial in the normal course of business.
There is no perfect strategy, rather a balance between diversification and relationship is what organizations should work towards. With numerous parameters to assess and manage vendors, organizations should leverage modern technology solutions to recommend and guide decisions. With insights from past transactions, streamlined processes, and automated workflows, organizations can build a solid strategy for their operations.
Streamline and optimize sourcing decisions with Copilot, helping buyers rapidly assess the impact of order changes and automate approvals.
Realize maximum cost savings by automatically applying negotiated pricing based on business-defined purchase policies.
Quickly onboard vendors and collaborate across procurement processes using a single, secure application.
Optimize your sourcing experience with punch outs to external vendor catalogues and explore more options to expedite order placement.
Effectively track vendor performance, lead times, and quality with embedded Microsoft Power BI templates.
When planning for contingency, it is easier to say that one should diversify their vendor base to reduce dependence on single or small sets of suppliers. If you diversify too much, you may need to forgo relationships. On the other hand, fewer vendors with stronger relationships can be hugely beneficial in the normal course of business.
There is no perfect strategy, rather a balance between diversification and relationship is what organizations should work towards. With numerous parameters to assess and manage vendors, organizations should leverage modern technology solutions to recommend and guide decisions. With insights from past transactions, streamlined processes, and automated workflows, organizations can build a solid strategy for their operations.
Improve forecast accuracy with AI, your own machine learning models, and external signals. Improve forecast explainability, outlier handling, and automate reports.
Ensure faster replenishment cycles and shorter delivery lead times with complete MRP runs in minutes so planners can react to demand changes in near-real time.
Optimize Inventory with dynamic stock buffers and DDMRP to refine fulfilment with automated inventory placement using Copilot.
Quickly gain consensus on demand plans by collaborating with all departments in the flow of work using Microsoft Teams.
Gain real-time insights into every order from intake to fulfilment and proactively address constraints using actionable insights.
Uncover planned purchase risks with data about past supplier performance and product metrics—all in one comprehensive workspace
Organizations today cannot avoid technology. With the dynamicity and complexities around us, organizations need to leverage technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their supply chain. With technologies available to run entire operations to ones facilitating specific processes, organizations have their tasks cut out to find the right solutions for their requirements.
Organizations can follow this simple guide to address this challenge:
There can never be a one strategy or plan for an organization that may last forever. Organizations need to be agile and adapt to the changing market conditions. Technology, the right one, can help build the agility and adaptability needed by organizations today. Microsoft Dynamics is the most improved and fastest growing enterprise application today. Learn more about how organizations are leveraging D365 for optimizing supply chain operations including unique requirements such as waste management, trade spend analytics, cost-to-serve analysis, etc.
