Individual research assignment

Supply chain management best practices

This article reveals the best practices to follow to succeed in a growing global market. I have
discovered that for this to happen, you require a supply chain that is connected from the
beginning to the end, across your entire enterprise and beyond. The article talks about Anaplan
and how it recommends these five steps to achieve a connected supply chain planning. They are;

a) Making a move to real-time supply chain planning

The article advised that when you are using ERP systems and spreadsheets for planning,
companies typically rely on historical data. This results in a wiggle room for changes should any
disruptions occur in demand or supply. For instance, based on the previous years, an
organization can estimate the number of products it will sell in the next quarter.

However, there are the ‘what if’ scenarios and should be catered for to be ready when disruptions
occur. This supply chain planning solution should cover any disaster that might destroy the
distribution site and lead to less supply on the shelves. Anaplan has developed a real-time
connected supply chain planning solution to help you in such situations. It is from this article that
I get to understand what Anaplan is about.

b) Unify supply chain planning with enterprise planning

This is another vital step in connecting traditionally siloed supply chain planning to sales and
operations and operations planning and financial planning. I have discovered that an organization
can benefit from coordinating their short-term operational planning with their wider business
planning processes. This will enable them to make real-time updates to inventory forecasts and
supply.

Deploying real-time S&OP solutions that enable enterprise-wide collaboration means that key
stakeholders can create other scenarios. As a result, they will quickly assess how to use their
resources to optimize profitability when an unforeseen event happens.

c) Anticipate the demand of the end customer

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When you are dealing with products, anticipating what customers want and when they want it is
an ongoing challenge. Once more, Anaplan provides a solution to this by allowing end-to-end
visibility across the supply chain and beyond an existing network of wholesalers as well as
retailers to sense demand signals from customers. When the sentiments of consumers can be
identified and changes to demand for the product is assessed, the company or organization can
benefit from improved profitability, margins, and lead time.

d) Leverage real-time data across all points of the supply chain.

Since supply chain planning involves a myriad of suppliers, channels, customers, and pricing
blueprints, models can become huge and potentially unmanageable. This is particularly when
spreadsheets are the primary planning tools. Anaplan reveals that incorporating a solution that
uses real-time data allows planning with immense accuracy and reduces the risk of stock-outs or
excess inventory.

e) Ensuring the flexibility to cope with change

Here, Anaplan has greatly recommended the use of technology to ease the planning and reactions
during the supply chain management process. It has Enlighted me that using technology
facilitates efficient planning and quick reactions, disruptions will not be disruptive. This will be
because re-planning and re-forecasting are easy and leads to time and money saved as well as
profitability.

In brief

This blog post revealed to me the best practices one should undertake to be successful in the
growing global market. It also depicts how the best practices can lead to a successful global
market and Anaplan practices these solution-based techniques. From this blog I have determined
that practicing these actions are often linked and together brings out the best version of an
organization to be successful.

Link: https://www.anaplan.com/blog/what-is-supply-chain-management/#:~:text=Supply
%20chain%20management%20is%20the,operations%20planning%2C%20and%20supply
%20management.

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