Tom Bacon, consultant with Revenue Optimization, discusses how supply chains can embrace the model of dynamic pricing that was pioneered by the airline industry.
Large UK manufacturers lost more than £58m in 2013 following a raft of preventable supply chain issues, including firms' failures to deliver goods on time.
The importance and potential of supply chain finance as a line of business is increasingly recognised by the European banking community, according to the latest study by Demica, a technology specialist for working capital solutions.
In the end, all outsourcing relationships are founded on trust. You can write a contract that drills down to the smallest details, but at some point you have to rely on the integrity of your partner. And when that trust is violated, the consequences can be severe.
Companies typically spread supply chain costs evenly across customers and products, but that results in some products and services subsidizing others, says Stan Aronow, director of supply chain research at Gartner. Aronow explains how cost-to-serve modeling can provide insights that lead to smarter and more profitable operating decisions.
What is the fastest-growing phenomenon in supply chain? We all know about the impact of online shopping on strategies, but even so, there is a good case to be made for supply chain finance. A recent study by Demica suggested that such schemes have been growing at the rate of 40 percent a year and are set to continue growing albeit at a slightly less frenetic rate.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are key drivers of growth in Asia, but they are hindered by inadequate access to finance, particularly from large banks. However, the Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation (MISI) has developed a framework for helping banks to tap into this vast market.