As businesses grow and evolve, there are several factors that contribute to building a competitive edge. Among these, the ability to build a seamless, well-integrated, data driven supply chain is certainly important, especially for companies involved in the trading of goods. Supply chain solutions are an essential link between the production and delivery of the product or service to the customer. An efficient and smooth supply chain solution can help businesses meet customer demands effectively.
As businesses grow increasingly global, the demand for supply chain solutions is only set to grow. According to a report by Research and Markets, the global supply chain management market size is expected to touch $37.41 billion by 2027, recording a CAGR of 11.2% from $15.85 billion in 2019.
Understanding Supply Chain Solutions
Supply chain solutions help integrate the process of producing goods with the delivery of the same to the end user. Logistics play an integral and vital role in developing a smooth, hassle free, and efficient supply chain solution. Effective logistics can help align the complicated process of acquiring, producing, and delivering the goods or services and helping in breaking it down to an efficient method.
Let’s take the case of a company such as Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL), a leading producer of metallurgical grade alumina and other aluminium products. It was facing certain challenges around global vendor coordination, origin consignment booking, and ocean freight transportation by break bulk and container. In addition, custom clearance & documentation, in- transit warehousing, on-shore transportation from port to site, and unloading of cargo at site were also important concerns.
For instance, it needed to manage the operational aspect of sourcing from multiple suppliers in China and ensure that freight cost was being effectively controlled. When its vessels arrived at the Vishakhapatnam port, the containers needed to be either dispatched to Project site via rail and/or road. Engaging a quality end to end supply chain solutions provider enabled VAL to smoothly execute its projects in an effective and efficient manner.
Benefits of Competent Supply Chain Solutions
Supply chain management becomes a whole lot easier when supply chain solutions are integrated with logistics. A reliable and trustworthy logistics system will become the backbone for successful supply chain management. Due to technological advancements and growth of logistics over the last few years logistics has become an integral part of supply chain solutions and it offers the following benefits to businesses:
Cost Reduction:
Businesses are always looking to lower their overheads, without comprising on quality of their goods and services. This is where supply chain solutions come into and play. Supply chain solutions can help businesses right from solving their warehousing needs to ensuring timely transportation to mapping out an effective method for delivering and receiving all the material required for production of a company’s goods.
Expansion and Growth:
With the growth in technology and logistics over the last few years, the global economy has allowed businesses to grow and expand their businesses outside of their countries. With a strong supply chain solution in place, businesses have the opportunity to go global. A streamlined supply chain solution can help businesses not only focus on expanding their current product line but also provide add on services to customers.
Resource Utilization:
When you have a supply chain solution that is economical and smooth, your resources are optimally utilized. It can help forecast timelines for inventory procurement to production to transportation. Based on this, companies can schedule production activities, procurement of raw materials, and allocate production budgets. By effectively managing warehouse and transportation scheduling, companies have an opportunity to schedule returns if any, and improve quality, thereby creating greater business value. To a large extent, good logistics support can help businesses understand their metrics better along with helping them deliver their products on time.
Technologically Advanced Systems
Today, with technology growing and being an integral part of every business operation, supply chain solutions are integrating tightly with logistics. Adopting highly technical methods can make the supply chain even more advanced and sophisticated. Be it going the cloud way, or enabling the use of artificial intelligence technology or using the data, or making available in-depth data analysis and research, a good technologically advanced supply chain solution can prove to be extremely valuable.
Trends to look out for Supply Chain Solutions
Supply Chain solutions have always played an integral role as a vital and essential foundation of businesses. The scope, scale, and extent of this is going to be huge as globalizations continues. One emerging trend is that air cargo is going to be a major growth driver for supply chain solutions. Along with this, technologies such as augmented reality and artificial intelligence are going to have a significant impact on supply chain solutions.
