There is extreme volatility in today’s end-to-end supply chain.  To be successful, you need a resilient supply chain. Are you keeping up with all the changes?  For example, think about the following:

  • Tariffs & trade impacts
  • Data & security breaches
  • The Amazon Effect
  • New technologies such as 3D printing
  • Natural disasters, port strikes and more

The Resilient Supply Chain
Instead of allowing each of these incidents to impact you, we must create a resilient supply chain.  Are you proactively thinking about these topics?

  1. Agility– Instead of seeing agile as an IT or project management concept, we should be thinking about how to incorporate agility into every step / every piece of our end-to-end supply chain.  If a customer changes his mind, are we flexible enough to handle it?
  2. Speed – Is your supply chain set up for speed?  Customers are unwilling to wait.  I’ve found that I’m unwilling to wait anymore.  If I wait for a trusted advisor, service provider, subcontractor or even a client, it delays LMA Consulting. For us to be on the leading edge with clients, we must be ahead of the curve; not waiting for something that will be obsolete before we get it!  That is one thing we appreciate about our webmaster; he is speedy and understands priorities which is how we are able to announce a major content upgrade (thanks Scott).
  3. Predictive – In today’s complex world, we must also be predictive so that we are prepared from an 80/20 standpoint for the most likely unexpected events, trends and bumps in the road.  Thinking three steps ahead can go a long way in creating resilience.
  4. Collaborative – One of key components to creating a resilient supply chain with multiple partners is to collaborate.  There is no time to establish relationships and find ways to navigate volatility together if you haven’t already set a collaborative tone.
  5. Adaptive team – No doubt; the core to resilience is having an adaptive team where each members understands where he/she is headed and feels empowered to handle obstacles as they arise.

Have you thought about each interrelated partner, piece or parameter in your end-to-end supply chain?  How can you set it up to be resilient?