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Are we solving the right Supply Chain problem?
Supply chain teams engage in solving a lot of customer problems, some of which pertain to major customers with significant revenue streams. It’s important that we first understand the actual customer problem, as experienced by the customer.
Some of these significant problems are raised by customers as a comment or a complaint. I was recently advising a team, which got a negative feedback from a major customer about delivery lead times. Sales team had already complained that their lead time was way too high compared to the competitors. The team worked on it and successfully reduced the delivery lead time, but the customer wasn’t satisfied. I asked them if they had discussed the actual problem in detail with the customer.
When they sat down with the customer to understand the specific pain area, it wasn’t the issue of high lead time. It was actually about the variation around the promised lead time. The customer just wanted the company to stick to the promised lead time.
Mean lead time and variations around it are two completely different problems, which manifest as separate pain areas. Unless we solve the right problem, customers would continue to experience the pain.