Supply Chain Management

In my opinion, there is less science and more experience involved when it comes to taking such strategic decisions. It has to be an optimum mix of data analysis with sheer gut feeling, business instinct that supply chain leaders develop over a period of time.

This is the one of the biggest dilemmas that a CSCO must be facing. It is an ever-changing environment and supply chain function continues to face numerous challenges, so how does a CSCO know which ones are important and critical from business perspective? You read any research report or a survey or talk to a supply chain head and you would see/hear a host of supply chain challenges. In one of the recent study done by a leading consulting company in supply chain domain, they listed more than 15 supply chain challenges faced by top management across multiple industry segments and geographies. Needless to say, it is imperative to define an approach to scrutinize these challenges, and filter out the ones that really matter to the business. In one of the leading global organizations, I met a dedicated team of supply chain specialists who work with the CSCO in doing this kind of analysis and provide a scientific approach to the entire issue identification process. The CSCO adds his experience and internal organization-specific nuances to it before coming out with the final prioritized issue list. This could be just one way to manage this.

After one has identified the prioritized issues, the next challenge is to come out with a set of focused solutions to handle those issues. Now, how does one arrive at it? And this is one of the areas where consultants come and make a difference. I have also seen supply chain leaders doing a benchmarking exercise to identify big improvement opportunity areas and then pick appropriate solutions. But is it really so simple and straight-forward? There could be so many different ways of tackling an issue and there would be complications when there are interdependencies and constraints involved? So, amidst all this, how is a CSCO able to identify the set of solutions that provide a good business case? Isn’t there a possibility of picking the wrong ones due to organizational dynamics and performance pressures?

And now the most difficult of all – the execution phase. Most of us have worked with multiple clients in this phase. How does a CSCO operationalize the action items and govern all of them effectively? There are so many factors such as geographical presence, talent pool availability etc. that make things more complex. Usually CSCOs run multiple programs at the same time and form core teams for each initiative that own the bottom-line. One of the leading research companies writes about a concept called Supply chain center of excellence that is responsible for most of these activities that I am talking about, although, it might be possible only with companies that are big in scale and size. Additionally, I feel it is extremely difficult for anyone to monitor and make progress unless until there is a strong governance model in place. I have seen cross functional committees (business performance improvement councils etc) chaired by a CxO level person meeting regularly for periodical reviews and status checks.

This is all I wanted to share but this is, by no means, complete and exhaustive. I have probably touched a small portion of what all a CSCO has to manage.

I look forward to know your point of view in this regard and it will be great if you can share your experience. I know this is a broad topic so feel free to comment on any aspect of it.