One thing that procurement departments are working intensively on at the moment is how to spend more effectively. That doesn’t mean just cost-cutting, but where to prioritize spending. Given that direct and indirect materials makeup at least 50% of the typical manufacturer’s costs, what procurement can do to improve inventory management is an obvious place to start.
Month: July 2020
Venture Bravely into the New Normal with Digital Readiness as Your Shield
Fortune favors the brave. Over the last few months, businesses have needed to venture bravely into a ‘new normal’. While this transition has been more natural for the companies who already had a strong digital strategy in place, it has been a challenge for those in the earlier stages of digital transformation.
The Smart Factory: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing and Distribution
It’s been around for decades but only in recent years has artificial intelligence (AI) emerged from the research labs into the real world. Interestingly, consumers are more familiar with it, in the form of Apple’s Siri, the Amazon’s Alexa, and navigation apps like Waze – so when will businesses, and especially manufacturers and distributors, get around to accepting AI as a standard part of business lives?
Digital Readiness: How Businesses are Responding to the “New Normal”
Reading Time: 7 minutes If the past few months have shown us anything, it’s that businesses everywhere are at different stages of digital readiness. We have all had to venture bravely into a “new normal”and adjust to a new, more remote, world of work, and daily life. While this transition has been more natural for the companies who already … Read more
Supply Chain Disruption – What Happens Next?
Organizations are looking for opportunities to innovate their operations and rethink their business models as the Covid-19 pandemic has caused not only a global humanitarian crisis but a supply chain crisis as well.
The World Economic Forum says the magnitude of this unprecedented crisis has yet to be fully realized or manifested. Some of the impacts on manufacturers and businesses around the globe include supply shortages, increased prices, fulfillment delays, and reputational damage to brands.
A 4-step Strategy for Building Procurement Resilience in a VUCA World
Supply chain disruptions are nothing new. From global trade disputes to Brexit, volatile exchange rates, fluctuating commodity prices and civil unrest, procurement has needed to be more agile and resilient than ever before. Recently COVID-19 added further pressure within the global value chain. China is a large producer of components and assemblies, but with the recent pandemic, many of these distribution channels were shut down with no notification and very little time to replace suppliers.
