Discussion on Supply Chain Management: “How can we become better than others?”
The Future of Manufacturing & Supply Chain Excellence conference, presented by the Faculty of Economics of the University of Ljubljana (FELU), on January 15, 2015, included an interesting discussion on Supply Chain Management (SCM). Moderator Tomislav Čorak (Principal of the Boston Consulting Group – BCG) and his esteemed guests presented the best cases from MNCs based on their Supply Chain Management.
As pointed out by Tomislav Čorak, ZARA’s organizational structure is cross-functionally integrated, which means that its competitive advantage is to accelerate delivery times to the stores and to customers. The question, how can we as a company increase the trust with our customers, was also raised. “If you want to have and try to keep loyal customer, you need to have a fast delivery, however, you need to have also the warehouses close to clients,” said Tomislav Čorak.
“Strategic function means the company starts to optimize their business, e.g. Inventory optimization, to connect customer needs to supply chain, while taking demand and supply volatility into account,” emphasised Mitja Praprotnik, Senior Director, Operations – Danfoss Commercial Controls. Nowadays, the environment is changing constantly, however, in order to succeed, companys should adapt to those changes, like Danfoss Trata did, explained Mitja Praprotnik. Besides that, the main role is also IT and its implementing in SCM. According to prof. dr. Aleš Groznik the technology offers the potential to change supply chain networks. However, an efficient supply chain network can bring improvements in productivity and in customer satisfaction. The participants also discussed the differences in SCM in the EU as compared to China. “We wouldn’t say we are better than China, but I would say we are definitely better than the US,” stated Jakob Laiminger, Head of Supply Chain Management, CEE, Sandoz, and added that we, as supply chain managers, should never ever try to outsource responsibility and entrepreneurs, in order to succeed in SCM.
Marina Ristič, EF News
Proofread by Leeanna Whirl, EFnews
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