Efficiency is one of the best words in business. It means you have mastered the art of the supply chain and are wasting the least amount of materials and products as possible. When your company is efficient, you have less to sell at a discount, can provide excellent service and stock for your stockists, and of course, recoup as much money as possible. Improving the efficiency within your supply chain, however, is not quite so straightforward. Supplier to supplier, or business to business, can become quite convoluted. You might personally only work with one supplier and one stockist, but do you know who supplies that company?
Knowing who you work with and improving the efficiency along the entire chain is how you will save on costs and reduce risk all at the same time. At the same time, implementing the right tools can help increase your sales and reduce the processing time at the core of your operations.
It isn’t easy to work as a middleman in the supply chain, but with these tips, you can make the entire process easier and more efficient.
Carefully Vet Your Suppliers
Transparency is the name of the game, and it is only when you know where every aspect of your product has come from and where it was made can you mitigate risk from the source. In some cases, the risk involved could be in a faulty product that has not passed all safety tests. In others, it could be a risk to the lives of workers along the supply chain, as was the case with the Rana Plaza Disaster in 2013, where suppliers illegally built warehouses to such an unsustainable level they collapsed in less than 90 seconds.
In short, know who your suppliers’ suppliers are, and vet them to ensure the safety of the product and those working there. Customers and businesses alike are becoming more demanding when it comes to where their products came from, and doing this can help you discover inefficiencies in the supply chain that can be easily rectified.
Improve Collaboration with Your Supplier and Buyer
A great way to reduce processing times and improve B2B operations is to operate an easy to use portal where your customers can self-serve information online. The Omnia product suite from www.weaveability.com offers a range of digital transformation solutions that provide a truly personalised customer experience. In this digital age, both businesses and consumers expect to easily purchase from and communicate with suppliers online. With the power of Omnia, you can customise the experience for every type of customer without any additional integration or hardware. You can also enable real-time communication thanks to instant access with your master data.
Use Data Management in Your Favor
Another great way to improve the efficiency of your company is to use your own numbers in your favor. One of the biggest wastes for any supplier or retailer is buying too much stock that then goes wasted. This stock will either be held up in storage, or it will need to be sold on at a loss. By using your data to find the sweet spot of supply vs. demand, you will be able to provide enough product to your customers without overdoing it.
