Email
sinha.rk.dr@gmail.com
How do you know your Supply Chain is better than the competition?
Supply Chain teams seem to be in a continuous assessment mode to check how effective their supply chain is. I have seen several parameters being tracked meticulously on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Some of these are compared with the competition, if their data is available in the public domain. However, by adopting this process, do we get an objective view of the reality?
I have often used a very simple technique which gives a better view of the reality. Pick one of your products and go to 10 retail outlets which are expected to keep your product as well as the competing brand. Check availability in these 10 outlets. Is your product availability better than the competition?
If you want to check supply chain performance on freshness, check the manufacturing date of your product versus the competition. Whichever brand has later date of production is performing better.
I have found these measures more authentic and realistic in measuring product availability and freshness, as experienced by consumers!
If you get this input from several employees in various geographies, even once a month, you can develop a tracker to give you a fair idea of how well your supply chain is performing.