The shock-resistant, resilient supply chain — demand management enables supply chain and financial resilience.

“Black swan” events highlight the need to transform traditional supply chain methods. Supply chain leaders are particularly under pressure to collaborate across the organization to build an agile and shock-resistant supply chain. Fortunately, supply chain leaders can look to new technologies that dramatically improve visibility across the end-to-end supply chain and drive decision-making to the edges of the enterprise.

In this white paper, you’ll receive insights into:

• How command centers enable active demand management and prescriptive decision-making
• The benefits of technology underpinning shock-resistant supply chains
• How to orchestrate business performance by breaking down silos and providing fast access to meaningful data

The material handling industry is increasingly transitioning to automated processes, but what comes next?

In an age of instant gratification, meeting immediate market demand is key to retaining competitive advantage. In fact, the Now Economy is all about understanding how crucial it is to cater to demand before it changes. With fluctuating customer attitudes and diminishing loyalty, every advantage counts.

A joint paper — Demand Sensing: A Critical Supply Chain Capability for the Now Economy — by GEP and Supply Management Insider discusses how demand sensing helps companies make their supply chains more proactive and responsive as demand fluctuates. It’s a game changer for firms with large sales volumes.

Why Read It:

• A hands-on perspective on demand sensing within product lifecycles
• The unique, unified technologies behind demand sensing
• How finely-honed algorithms make sense of internal and external data

The paper is a must-read for supply chain and procurement leaders looking to make their supply chain responsive to immediate demand — get your complimentary copy today.

Two days. Next day. Free delivery. Free returns. Total visibility. Perfect order. Cost stability. Unpredictable order mixes. Last mile. Omnichannel. Anxious yet?

3PLs face these competitive pressures due to higher customer expectations, higher costs and lack of available people, transportation and space resources. As Mark Richards, vice president at Associated Warehouses said, “At AWI, our consortium of 3PLs has been seeing labor and space constraints leading to more 3PLs embracing automation.”

The good news is that many clients are looking for longer-term 3PL partners rather than just temporary relief valves. However, being a longer-term partner means 3PLs have to up their game to provide greater responsiveness, visibility and accuracy while being cost competitive. Oh, and 3PLs need to do that while trying to serve multiple types of customers with variations in competitive strategies. Bruce Welty, CEO of the 3PL Quiet Logistics, said that, “Technology is changing everything, but the inertia for many companies makes it difficult to shift from the push driven world to one that provides constant change in order mix by the minute.”

Tecsys, a global provider of supply chain solutions, is sharing are six reasons why 3PLs need to embrace technology in order to gain, retain and even delight customers.

Healthcare systems are increasingly squeezed between the high pressures of operating expenses and reimbursement levels. The industry has struggled to find ways to provide high-quality care that produces desired outcomes at a sustainable cost. Many healthcare systems fall short of reaching their goals on Cost, Quality and Outcomes (CQO) because they lack control of their own supply chains.  

The highest expense category for healthcare providers, after people, is supplies. If a healthcare system does not have control of its supplies, then it does not have a meaningful way to manage the true cost of quality care. That is why more than 70 health systems have made the wise decision to implement a Consolidated Service Center (CSC), also known in Canada as a Shared Services Organization (SSO). It’s a proven pathway to manage the sourcing, procurement, receipt, processing, packaging, shipment, distribution and delivery of its supplies rather than rely solely on third-party service providers or distributors. 

Now the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the role of supply chain management into new territory. To ensure success amid the changing market landscape, healthcare leaders will need to further elevate the importance of data, analytics and technology to control their supply chains. 

Are you are re-examining your healthcare supply chain management strategy? Tecsys, a global provider of supply chain solutions, is sharing the top 10 reasons to consider a consolidated service center.

The COVID-19 pandemic has tested the resiliency of supply chains all around the world. In the groceries segment, for example, this unprecedented event saw consumers hoarding food and other goods, creating gaps in their flow from suppliers to retailers. Many supply chains lagged because they were unable to respond rapidly to unusual events. 

While COVID-19 may have been unusual, supply-chain disruptions are anything but. Natural disasters, social unrest, and heavy weather all regularly inflict headaches on supply-chain managers. A 2018 report from the Business Continuity Institute showed that 56% of companies experienced a supply-chain disruption in the prior year, and that 60% dealt with between five and 10 disruptions during the prior two years. During the current crisis, 75% of manufacturing companies that source from China experienced supply-chain hiccups, according to the Institute for Supply Management. 

Supply chains that under-performed during COVID-19 — and there were many — need to be rebuilt with more resiliency going forward. What lessons can we learn from the supply-chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic?