CHALLENGES IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Dr.D.Sathishkumar, Asst. Professor, MBA, Sankara College of Science and Commerce

Supply Chain management is the process by which supply chain activities are managed to have an advantage over competitors as well as to maximize the value of our customers. It represents the efforts by which the supply chain management solutions help to develop and manage supply chain activities in the most efficient way. By having the awareness of supply chain management to identify the possible challenges and provide solutions to them.

Qualified Personnel
Challenges: Finding talent over the years interested and passionate about the line of work. Personnel hired in this field must have an understanding about the duties and responsibilities needed.
Solutions: Since locating dedicated personnel to work for this field has become increasing hard to find, their market value will start to rise. Hiring and promoting through in-house staff would be the most affordable solution at this point.

Quality Customer Service
Challenge: The Supply chain management is centralised on the needs of the customers. It is about to give the right quantity and right quality of the product for the right amount of money, in perfect timing and setting.
Solution: It might seem simply, but customers have different preferences and we have to always adjust to the customers’ needs, being able to provide customer’s unique solutions make a difference entirely. Companies that actually excel in this field are the ones that make an effort to learn and invest in new technologies.

Risk management
Challenges: Due to the constant change in the market, coming from a variety of sources such as consumer demands, political agendas and global sourcing, would cause major issues to the operations.
Solutions: Always be prepared with a risk management plan, on how the company will be able to overcome disruptions during the course of operations, by hiring a logistics software development company would be able to manage these issues effectively with less effort on the company end.

Costing
Challenges: The cost of raw materials, energy and labour has increased due to economical constrains globally, for the operations to continue production and provide customers with good quality items at affordable rates, adjustments have to be made to keep operations running.
Solutions: The best solution to this issue would be improving your cost control by executing the plans efficiently through constant monitoring. Through efforts in providing warehouse efficiency will be able to do the process.

Supplier Relationship
Challenges: By creating a mutually sound and harmonious relationship with the partners or suppliers the company will be able to provide the customers with high standard products in a timely manner. This allows in creating an opportunities for improvement in terms of performance.
Solutions: By Building a strong working relationship with the supplier, the company would be able to work efficiently and come up with better output in a short period of time.

Unforeseen Delays
Challenges: Procurement of materials and product may be easy, but the delivery may not always be satisfied to the peak on time, especially with time differences and a variety of shipping time frames. When items are sourced from different countries, delays like this are common.
Solutions: With the support of warehouse management system the company are able to know the need to have certain materials delivered as well as create a time cushion in terms of delivery to make sure everything runs smoothly.