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What are the 3 biggest challenges faced by supply chain/purchasing professionals today? (Survey Result 16)

Written by: Jon Hansen

Article Overview: There are many factors both internally as well as externally that are affecting supply chain/ procurement practices today. From the growing talent vacuum to the continuing lack of collaboration between Finance, IT and Purchasing relative to corporate initiatives. What in your own experiences and opionions are the top 3 issues that procurement professionals face?

What are the 3 biggest challenges faced by supply chain/purchasing professionals today? (Survey Result 16)

Tony, Director of Quality, Cleveland, U.S.

1) Solid S&OP process (C-level driven) to drive right behaviors for forecasting, stock replenishment and inventory management.

2) Lack of vendor management programs - these programs are key in markets where quality products are needed with consistent vendor performance to deter excess inventory builds & scrap/return costs.

3) Professional training & development programs based on industry standards. Supply chain management should be based on standard process and data driven decision making rather than intuition/gut feel. This can only be achieved through company sponsored continuous education.

Naveen, Entrepreneur IT Services, Bangalore, India

1. Not driven by process.

2. Delayed involvement of Procurement.

3. Supplier mis-managment

Others,
Inventory / Asset Management
Warehousing

Koen, Business Opportunity Analyst, Gent, Belgium

Negociating "Price" and "Terms & Conditions" is only a start. The real challenges are :

1) commitment to deliver good products on time
(Too often people only focus on excuses and penalties instead of getting the production chain up and running)

2) transparancy of risks (e.g. for missing delivery target or cause for quality defects)

3) responsiveness and flexibility --> = partnership !!

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Article Tags: asset management, business opportunity, c level, continuous education, excess inventory, intuition, inventory management, management programs, negociating, procurement, professional training, quality defects, quality products, responsiveness, stock replenishment, supply chain management, target, transparancy, vendor management, vendor performance



Related Forum Posts
Re: What is your biggest challenge? Today? - [quote:3ce2ievo](Oh, the state of the human condition! What challenges we create for ourselves. Do the birds of the air toil as we do? Or do they simply revel in the joy of each moment?)[/quote:3ce2ievo] GT - Be like the birds... That's my biggest challenge today.
Re: What Businesses to Bail Out? - That's the tough thing. People are really hanging onto their money right now, in fear that they may lose their job. No one is secure and it's going to be one of our biggest challenges ever to get through this crisis. All the money Obama sank into the system to get things moving and 10 months later we are still losing jobs. There's got to be a better way.
Re: What is your biggest challenge? Today? - My today biggest challenge was to avoid distractions... and i managed.
Finding Good People - From my own experiences and from interviewing some of Canada's fastest growing companies, one of the biggest challenges always seems to be finding good people to hire. What have you guys done to find good people and keep them in your organization?
Survey the Landlord - Terry, my suggestion is simple but powerful - Survey. Survey Landlords and find out what is important to them. By doing this it does two things: 1. You will find out trends/under-operated services that Landlords are currently unsatisfied with = your client will be able to fulfill 2. You are infact Marketing your clients services by doign this because when you are approaching your landlords it not a sales pitch and they have someone to clear their frustrations with. Then when you approach them after a month (when you've put your numbers together and identified services that are most important) you can remind them of the survey and share with them the results. At this point you can end with an offer to use your clients services to manage their property. I use this method with my clients who are looking for new services to develop in thier markets. It's simple but powerful.


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