Strategically Phase in Technology to Bolster Supply Chain Management
Starting from predicting demand, supply chain is your company’s lifeline. You can easily lose customers and miss your growth targets if only one link in the chain fails.
- Supply chain shortcomings fuel growing realization that existing IT systems are inadequate to support SCM data and process complexity. This increases pressure on IT, but attempts to find adequate solutions are fragmented, lack direction, and ultimately do not yield the desired outcomes.
- There is no overarching definition for supply chain in the organization as it means different things to different people.
- As the organization scaled up, the complexity of supply chain has increased exponentially and the skills don’t currently exist in house to deal with such complexity.
- Inadequate planning has adverse effect on the rest of the supply chain activities, and technology is blamed for the lack of enablement.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Technology is NOT a “silver bullet.” Change the focus from technology alone to balance it across processes, people and suppliers in alignment with organizational priorities and technical maturity.
- Planning is the key. Demand forecasting and planning shape the operational success for the rest of the chain. Sharpen up planning process before investing in expensive technology.
- Adopt best practices and eliminate noise. Adopt best industry practices for most processes. Carefully pick and focus on true differentiating areas only.
Impact and Result
- Adopt a holistic perspective on supply chain management (SCM) that breaks the siloes. Understand what SCM is to your organization.
- Improve alignment of the technology initiatives with business goals and provide a foundation for SCM solution business case.
- Evaluate the current state of your Supply Chain capabilities and identify ideal state prior to choosing a solution.
- Establish competitive and future-looking differentiation in SCM practices where it can be enabled by technology.
- Leverage best industry practices and evaluate your key differentiating abilities against technological maturity and the value it is capable of bringing.
- Develop a practical roadmap the whole organization can buy into and engage and equip SCM with decision-making tools to meet business objectives and drive business strategy.
Workshop: Strategically Phase in Technology to Bolster Supply Chain Management
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Workshop Preparation
The Purpose
Facilitator works with team to verify organizational readiness for SCMS strategy project and form the core workshop team.
Key Benefits Achieved
Level-set on organizational readiness and project alignment
Activities
Outputs
Review SCMS approach.
Finalize agenda.
- Workshop Agenda
Review supporting documentation and questionnaires.
- Questionnaires
Introduce project charter.
- Project Charter
Module 2: Define SCM and Project Structure
The Purpose
Clarify what constitutes supply chain management in the context of the organization and define what’s driving the initiative and its scope.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Organizational alignment behind project goals and expectation
- Shared understanding of pain points and objectively evaluated SCMS project drivers
Activities
Outputs
Introduce SCMS.
Evaluate business needs and priorities.
Discuss challenges and pain points.
Discover benefits and opportunities.
- Project Expectations
Complete the SCMS business model.
- SCMS Business Model
Identify manual processes and redundancies, and workarounds.
- SCMS Current State
Module 3: Gather High-Level Requirements
The Purpose
Gather high-level functional and other requirements for the potential SCM solution.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Identified key stakeholders
- Clearly scoped SCMS capabilities
Activities
Outputs
Identify SCMS stakeholders by key functional area.
Document high-level requirements in SCM operating model.
- SCM Operating Model
Assess gaps and opportunities for alignment to organizational goals and SCM strategy.
- Classified pain points
- Opportunities for organizational alignment
Module 4: Design Future State
The Purpose
Agree on key priorities and map out paths to achieving desired future state in prioritized SCM capability areas.
Key Benefits Achieved
Agreement on key process capabilities with assigned ownership
Activities
Outputs
Continue documenting requirements in SCM operating model.
Visualize ideal future state.
- Process priorities
Identify critical success factors.
- Metrics
Explore SCMS solution alternatives.
- Solution selection (augment, maintain, replace, integrate & consolidate)
Module 5: Develop Roadmap
The Purpose
Develop high-level action plan toward the future state.
Key Benefits Achieved
Actionable initiatives roadmap to proceed with future phases of the SCMS project
Activities
Outputs
Brainstorm initiatives.
Prioritize initiatives and rollout schedule.
- Comprehensive roadmap
Assign ownership for tasks and create deadlines.
- Prioritized initiatives and assignment
Identify stage gates and milestones.
- Finalized deliverable (post workshop)
Identify risks and contingencies.
- Risk management plan