Gattorna Says:
|
The
secret to designing a
superior supply chain
is to start by re-segmenting
customers along buying
behavior lines and then
reverse engineering from
there.
What
do you say? Send
us your comments here
|
We have
all been seeking the holy grail
of improved operational and
financial performance. The problem
is we have been looking at all
the wrong places. The secret
to designing a superior supply
chain is to start by re-segmenting
customers along buying behavior
lines and then reverse engineering
from there. Instead,
most companies continue to segment
their customers by "institutional"
type; industry sector; size;
profitability; geography; ...all
of which have nothing to do
with anything when it comes
to improving our understanding
of "how" customers want to buy
their products/services, and
"why" they may prefer to buy
from us!
We then need
to shape specific value propositions
for each discrete type of buying
behavior identified, and underpin
these with appropriate organization
structures, processes, technology
and other building blocks. Consider
the supply chains that exist
in your industry today.
How difficult
would it be to shift towards
using multiple supply chains
to serve your different customer
segments? And how effective
would this be? Where would you
start?
The good
news is that the idea of "aligning"
supply chains with customers,
suppliers and third party logistics
providers is intuitively attractive
and catching on around the world.
For instance, we are seeing
evidence of this approach in
the fashion industry, high-tech
electronics, and even building
materials. Companies as far
apart as South Africa and Columbia
are applying "alignment"
principles to their business.
But mostly the distinguishing
factor is the visionary leadership
of the companies that are experimenting
with this "new way." However,
in the overall scheme of things,
there are still relatively few
enterprises that have joined
all the dots and understand
through practice on the ground
just how to engineer and operate
"aligned" supply chains.
More commonly we are still seeing
partial solutions at best, and
a continuance of outmoded practices
at worst. In the meantime, the
rthymn of business is speeding
up so new solutions must be
found in the near term in
order for some businesses to
even survive.
One of
the best examples of alignment
is the Hong Kong based Li &
Fung company, which has evoled
from a trading business into
perhaps the best supply chain
manager in the world today,
working as a go-between for
major retail clients in both
soft and hard-goods categories.
This company has, like Zara
in Spain, broken it's previous
business model and organized
itself in a completely different
way, throwing out the now defunct
functional silos that most companies
are still deperately clinging
to. Herein lies the secret:
organize yourself internally
to directly mirror the
structure of your marketplace,
and you are half-way there.
Cling on to old norms and you
will surely die, fast or slow.
The solution is there for the
taking. It's over to you!
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