Why consider supply markets? The supply market for an important item should be the starting point for developing the sourcing strategy; identifying the potential effects on your organisation. This requires a comprehensive knowledge of relevant markets. Analysis of a supply market can assist sourcing decisions through identifying: Constraints and potential threats related to an item, including trade influencing actions undertaken … Read More
The scope of Supply Chains and operational disciplines
Supply Chain definitions Understanding the scope of a challenge helps in defining how to structure and implement the solution. So it is with supply chains. Supply chains are not new; they have existed since people commenced trading items. But, the term itself was first used in an article written in the early 1980’s and commenced adoption in business about ten … Read More
Trends and thoughts about supply chains in 2019
Trends viewed in categories In business, a trend can refer to a business model, a process or a technology. However, a trend will only be of more than passing interest if it could directly impact your business and people. Based on articles written by various commentators, trends in supply chains for 2019 can be grouped into four categories: Channels of … Read More
Change in a country’s logistics performance can be slow
Country logistics performance When evaluating the performance of Logistics Service Providers (LSP) across countries in your supply chains, there must also be an evaluation of the logistics capability for each identified country. Why is this? Because a higher level of performance from logistics services depends on the public sector’s policies and actions, including: attitude to globalisation, regulations, infrastructure, controls and … Read More
Change in the freight forwarding sector of supply chains
A fragmented market. A freight forwarder is not a capital intensive business, unlike a container shipping line, with investment in ships and possibly shore-side equipment. However, freight forwarders are data intensive businesses. Any industry in this situation will have established companies open to competition from other players in the supply chains, in addition to technology based disruptors. If there is … Read More