European Supply Chain Challenges 2006

September 19, 2006

Improve Efficiency by Connecting Incompatibles: It IS Possible

What are European companies’ main challenges when it comes to supply chain management? Supply Chain Analytics, together with the Institute of Operations Management and Nottingham University Business School surveyed 66 European companies, including several in the Nordic region.

Click here to read the results of their study - European Supply Chain Challenges 2006.

The study found companies that want to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of employees are hampered by a significant and surprising lack of electronic collaboration.

The study finds: “The main reasons the surveyed companies are seeking to improve the level of electronic collaboration with supply chain partners (i.e. customers and suppliers) is to improve personnel effectiveness… In most companies Purchasing personnel spend too much time raising orders and chasing suppliers for order confirmation and delivery dates – rather than in higher value-adding activities such as sourcing and supplier improvement. In Sales Order desks, people are keying in orders from faxes, phone calls and emails – rather than focusing on higher value-adding activities such as selling and customer care. Electronic order collaboration or electronic Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) strategies can automate this low value-adding activity, reducing order errors, raising service levels and freeing up people for other tasks.”

The problem / solution in a nutshell: “Typically electronic collaboration has been expensive, time consuming and has made significant demands on IT skills… When companies decide to act, they then face technical and skills barriers. To date, the available solutions for electronic collaboration – EDI and XML have been unsuitable for linking small to medium sized companies due to their cost and complexity. This is beginning to change with the availability of new dedicated supply chain collaboration applications utilising smart-mapping technologies, which lower both the cost of collaboration and the skills required to implement and run it.”

Videlity is exactly that – a dedicated supply chain collaboration application. Call us and we’ll tell you exactly how we’ll help you grow your business without growing your payroll.