June 15, 2015
According to a recent KPMG survey on the Global Manufacturing Outlook, executives are thinking about innovation. 81% are altering their business models to to encourage collaboration with customers, suppliers and other partners to “improve the value of their innovation investments”. Speed is critical. Thus, a key question is how to speed up the innovation cycle – and how do we make sure results follow?
Are you collaborating with your customers and suppliers? How about internal resources? SIOP (sales, inventory and operations planning) is a great vehicle for ensuring this collaboration occurs. I’ve seen dramatic improvements in lead time, service levels, capacity preparedness for growth, margins and cash (inventory levels) as I partner with my clients to implement SIOP.
One tip to implement this week:
The great news about collaboration is that we can all do something to improve collaboration. Start small. How about talking with your colleague in the next office over instead of sending an email? Can you find ways to collaborate with functions you interact with on a daily basis? Perhaps you can ask if there is something you can improve in your service/ interactions with them that would help them? Then, expand to your customers, suppliers and other partners.