In the world of bringing a pharmaceutical product to market, supply chains play a vital and multifaceted role, ensuring the seamless flow of materials, timely delivery of products, and adherence to regulatory requirements across complex global networks. A McKinsey study states, “…On-time delivery generally is not a problem. On-time, in-full (OTIF) fulfillment levels are 97 percent. Clinical drug supply professionals corroborated these findings, as they focus primarily on not missing doses…On the other hand, waste levels for investigational medicinal product (IMP) kits reached a concerning 50 percent, driven primarily by poor forecasting and planning—highlighting a significant opportunity to capture value.” (mckinsey.com).

Just like a Commercial Supply Chain, a Clinical Supply Chain has multiple interconnected nodes and inherent complexity at a global level from the moment the first patient is enrolled. Naturally, the volume of product requirements is relatively low, so the Supply Chain is not yet experiencing high-volume operational constraints and intensive resource requirements. Nevertheless, a continuum of capability building should be present. The reason is simple: there are already escalating costs and potential risks that must be proactively anticipated and mitigated. 

Figure 1 below illustrates the relationship between complexity and time for two variables: The technical readiness of the product itself, as well as its manufacturing, and Supply Chain Maturity. It highlights the interplay between product development and supply chain scalability, emphasizing the challenges and transitions leading to commercial readiness. 

Figure 1. Clinical Supply Chain Complexity vs. Technical and Clinical Uncertainty

The point of the illustration in this figure is to simply acknowledge an evolving landscape across the domains of technical development, clinical uncertainty, and the supply chain’s increasing complexity over time. In many respects, technical and clinical complexity are also increasing, so this is not to suggest otherwise. However, for clinical supply chain purposes, over time, more unknowns are becoming at least directionally better understood and more easily shared by the clinical and technical development groups. For the supply chain, this makes the biggest difference as they are now receiving more robust input to make decisions and establish operational capabilities.

Let’s decompose the Clinical Supply Chain into its parts, see Figure 2 below.

Figure 2. Primary nodes in the End-to-End Clinical Supply Chain

While the 4th segment of the Supply Chain in Figure 2 above is the most visible and widely appreciated outside of the CMC function, a great deal of the supply chain risk lies in nodes 1-3. Commonly, there is a management separation from a Supply Chain point of view at node 3. In other words, nodes 1-3 are managed under one Supply Chain governance, while node 4 is managed under another.

This division makes sense from a workload perspective, but it does create two domains of competency that are not always fully in sync. Let’s discuss improved alignment across these segments.

Achieving Better Clinical & Operations Alignment

An often overlooked, but impactful governance mechanism that can be used to maintain alignment across these functions is a Clinical & Operations Planning (C&OP) process. Typically used for Clinical and CMC alignment, this process actually supports alignment within CMC and outside of it. The key is that cross-functional participation and learning about each function’s key drivers enables streamlined integration of the ever-evolving plans. 

The reality is that Clinical Supply Chain sits in-between to highly variable environments; i.e. CMC development and its inherent variability and clinical operations and its equally variable nature. The position and effective role of the Clinical Supply Chain is illustrated in Figure 3 below. 

Figure 3. Clinical Supply Chain as the link between two evolving functions in the development and clinical trial phases

The role of the Clinical Supply Chain is, therefore, to smooth both sides, de-risk critical connection points, and sustain a stable supply to Clinical Operations. These particular processes closely mirror those linking complex Commercial Supply Chains, offering an opportunity to build capabilities by leveraging ‘light’ Commercial Supply Chain tools and methodologies. These may include Supply Chain Management dashboards, forecast accuracy measurement, performance-to-plan tracking, and others. All of these being core elements of a well functioning C&OP process.

Following this ‘light’ tools approach can significantly enhance a teams’ readiness to support growth, establish risk management processes, and develop future capabilities.

A great example of establishing and operating on-going alignment through C&OP is the Clinical Supply Chain function clearly articulating its information and timing requirements on a recurring basis and through the formal forum of C&OP. A simple diagram of these parts coming together is illustrated in figure 4 below.

Figure 4. The simple elements that are core to a successful C&OP

The formal forum is needed because the clinical supply chain function has to do this in both the CMC and Clin Ops directions since the information needs are to align both.

The processes are ongoing, but there are critical information elements that have critical timing implications. Many of these information elements seem simple to the originator of the information (CMC or Clinical Ops) but they are critical to the clinical supply chain. Things like expected yield, timing of output, and target quantity. From Clin Ops, these may include expected first patient in, dose, and number of patients.

There is always hesitation to provide some of this information given the uncertainty in the processes, and again, this is the case with both CMC and Clinical Ops. This is understandable, but a good rule of thumb is that it may take 12 months for a supply chain to produce and make a product available. While this number can vary, it is helpful to think in this order of magnitude since it is indeed a long time to get a product from beginning to end.

In the world of the Clinical Supply Chain and given these long timeframes, an uncertain number is better than a more accurate one too late in the process. For examples like this, C&OP as a consolidated forum is indeed the best practice as a formal governance process to enable optimized alignment across clinical and supply chain operations.

Wish to discuss more about this subject and how ScaleUp Inc can help you with Clinical & Operations Planning (C&OP) in Clinical Supply Chains? Schedule a quick connect with Marcos Buelvas here.

Author – Marcos Buelvas, Managing Director, ScaleUp Inc

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What is Strategic Sourcing?

Strategic sourcing is a holistic approach to developing channels of supply that deliberate all activities within the procurement cycle to get the best possible total cost instead of only the lowest purchase price of those goods.

Strategic sourcing enables businesses to consolidate their purchasing power to secure the lowest possible total cost of ownership and reduce the risk to the supply chain. It requires continuous re-assessment of the business’s sourcing activities, market analysis, and aligning of business requirements and goals with those of the suppliers.

The process views suppliers as crucial value partners and aims to build sustained and collaborative relations. At every stage of the lifecycle, the customer-supplier loop is analyzed to ensure that needs of the businesses are efficiently and continually met.

How does it work?

Businesses can leverage strategic sourcing to make their procurement process less focused on price and shortsighted. Instead, a sourcing plan can allow them to create an adaptable system that contributes to the overall value of the business in the long term. The process starts with analyzing business requirements and historical spending, trailed by drawing a strategic plan, and then steering market analysis and data collection that guides the selection of a list of suppliers.

The process involves working with new suppliers to integrate them into existing processes by using the communication plan. Besides selection and negotiations, strategic sourcing method also includes measuring performance and improving processes continually. It involves tracking the performance metrics and effectiveness of the sourcing plan.

Why is strategic sourcing in a supplier’s market important?

The most obvious benefit of strategic sourcing is reduced total cost, however, the advantages of reimaging the sourcing process can be far-reaching. Below are the other potential benefits of strategic sourcing in a supplier’s market.

Cost Savings

Sourcing suppliers with this method and continuous analysis of the evolving market implies that businesses can ensure that they are continually attaining high cost savings. The process also allows organizations to align their component sourcing with their business goals thus increasing their efficiency and minimizing the risk within the supply chains. By optimizing value in all partnerships and streamlining procurement, strategic sourcing reduces costs in the upstream supply chain.

Cultivates valuable partnerships

Today supply chains span across the globe and are much more complex due to digital transformation. Even the consumer is also much more informed and selective. Therefore, for businesses to stay ahead of the curve it is important to build partnerships that are advantageous to all stakeholders in the supply chain. With continuous market analysis, strategic sourcing allows the procurement team to identify areas of growth and supplier associations that do not add value.

Mitigates Risks

The process of strategic sourcing is all about optimizing affiliations with stakeholders across the supply chains. The method takes into consideration suppliers’ flexibility and innovation rather than only looking at low costs. A strong sourcing strategy helps in building rapport with a varied range of multi-tier suppliers. Therefore, in case of any supply chain disruption, a business with good strategic sourcing can fall back on other partnerships. The focus on continuous analysis and improvements leads to improved flexibility to adapt to external disruptors.

Strategic Sourcing as a business practice

Strategic sourcing is a key to the successful supply chain management. The core challenge of supply chain management is removing the barriers between the organization and its suppliers and consumers to ensure customer service excellence, operational costs optimization, and improved financial position, strategic sourcing emerges as a key factor to integrate and support the suppliers into the supply chain effectively.

Conclusion

Supply chain management and strategic sourcing go hand in hand. Global supply chain responsiveness requires knowledge of customer requirements, the partners’ and organizations’ capabilities, and the interpretation of the organization’s needs to suppliers.

Strategic sourcing provides unique contributions to supply chain competitiveness, generating opportunities for establishing better inter and intra-firm relations. With an alignment between sourcing strategies and organizational goals, an organization can effectively outline a path for developing suppliers, cost optimization for the entire supply chain, introducing innovation, and identifying and mitigating risks. By decreasing supply uncertainties, strategic sourcing optimizes supply chain efficiency and effectiveness.

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What is supply chain agility?

In supply chain management, agility means being able to plan, respond, and monitor promptly in case of unexpected events. It means to instantly change the direction when required to rationalize SKUs, shorten planning cycles, and shift production lines.

The goal is to maintain a fluid, responsive, and informed supply chain that can easily navigate changes that may come its way- whether good or bad.

Successful supply chain agility depends on the following-

• Understanding the external factors that shape supply chain logistics, irrespective of how steady things are now.
• Integration of process workflows and more proactive technology to address the pain points in the value chain.
• Exploration of components of the value chain that are most affected by industry disruption.
• Ongoing analysis and monitoring of new processes, production cost savings, and cross-functional collaboration, continuing to tweak practices if required.

Dimensions of an agile supply chain

Alertness/Awareness

Organizations that are alert can forecast changes in the industry, competitor threats, growth opportunities, and upcoming disruptions. The more aware organizations are, the quicker they can respond to changes in demand and supply trends.

Accessibility

Companies cannot incorporate changes without access to information and tools. Alert businesses have access to specific industry data in relevant history logs that all stakeholders can easily analyze and share.

Decisiveness

If organizations are decisive, they can clearly and quickly translate any industry change in the accompanying information into action. The most decisive organizations have easy and unified change-of-command to lessen the number of points of contact required to make a quick decision.

Swiftness

Swift organizations implement their plans quickly. More quickly the changes are made, more cost-effective the entire supply chain becomes and this is profitable for businesses. 

Adaptability

Agile businesses have the power and the buy-in to modify the ongoing processes when new opportunities come. This can be done without disrupting the entire business. Those capable of adaptability understand that action plans can change anytime, even when they are commenced under a smooth data-backed cycle that fits a value chain need at the time.

Ways to increase supply chain agility

Use real-time data

Maintaining real-time inventory levels is crucial to success as it provides more visibility into operations that can help companies in making informed decisions and can be proactive in implementing changes across the supply chain. For instance, the ability to view, track, and manage inventory levels across the supply chain in real-time can give a business insight into how to optimize inventory to keep costs low as well as meet demand.

Spilt the inventory

Although the primary benefit of splitting the inventory across several fulfillment locations allows businesses to expand their consumer reach geographically, a secondary distribution center can help to avoid long fulfillment delays and can help businesses to continue to meet consumer expectations even if a warehouse has to shut down due to any unexpected event. Strategic inventory management principles help to plan this crucial element and makes the supply chain more agile.

Implement demand forecasting

By implementing demand forecasting tools, companies can anticipate demand fluctuations based on the past, patterns, and seasonality. Appropriate demand forecasting can help organizations to maintain healthy stock levels at all times, plan for flash sales and promotions to be done in future, and make sure that they have enough inventory for the busy holiday/festive season.

Set Stock Keeping Units (SKU) reorder points

To avoid delays and stock-outs, companies can use past sales data and inventory to determine when it is time to reorder inventory at the stock keeping unit level so that inventory can be restocked at the right time.  

Companies can also take into consideration future growth to understand how many units of SKU should be ordered. Many inventory management solutions are available in the market that can help in pulling up the data which is required by a business to determine an optimal reorder point. These solutions also include an automatic notification feature that can notify when inventories are running low.

Investing in warehouse technology (Warehouse Management System/WMS)

As businesses expand their supply chains, they will need to store inventory in several warehouses, which can be challenging and complex. To overcome this, companies need to have technology in place that controls and monitors daily operations within the warehouse.

Warehouse technology and automation will help businesses to ensure that inventory is received, picked, stored, packed, shipped, and replenished efficiently. Besides that, the right WMS also has the potential to improve consumer satisfaction.

Final Word

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about the importance of supply chain agility even more than before. With the sudden scarcity of raw materials to changes in demand, stock-outs to shipping carriers being stretched beyond capacity, the world has seen it all. Therefore, it has become essential for businesses to increase their supply chain agility to thrive in such constantly changing scenarios while maintaining profitability.

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Global supply chain crisis in 2021 and the solutions for 2022

After the pandemic, the supply chain crisis had been the biggest story in the year gone by and the COVID induced lockdowns of 2020 fueled the crisis. Many supply chain challenges such as mismanaged inventory, aging shipping fleet, and the lack of accurate data had already been there for years but the coronavirus pandemic aggravated these issues further.

What happened in 2021?

COVID was just one part of the problem, the real-world supply chain workflows became global before the tools and platforms to manage said workflows were sufficiently available. The supply chains were designed for the lowest cost and efficiency but not resilience.

Furthermore, the business and economic environment became more challenging. For instance, in the UK and the rest of Europe due to Brexit led to supply chain pressures causing increase in red tape and cross-border checks. Broadly, the firms continue to grapple with a range of international business challenges ranging from building global management teams to fluctuating international exchange rates.

Besides that, the environmental impact of logistics and supply chain activities is now being understood more widely. So if the countries across the globe have to meet their commitments and emission targets they need to develop more sustainable supply chain practices.

Fixing the supply chain issues in 2022

It seems that the supply chain crisis is not going away, the port slowdowns are likely to persist as the new virus variants have led to strict monitoring, testing, and quarantine protocols at ports. This will lead to extended delays. Additionally, the work from home trend may continue longer and that can lead to a shortage in labor supply. Besides that, the semiconductor shortage will continue this year. Demand for goods that use chips will remain high and due to lead time to build new semiconductor factories, there will be a demand and supply gap in 2022, according to a Forbes report.

Considering the above facts, here are a few solutions that can help businesses to fix their supply chain challenges in 2022.

Switching to a de-globalized supply chain

Due to the ongoing disruptions, countries across the globe are trying to become less dependent on the notion that they should manufacture goods in countries with the lowest labor costs and ship them quickly to consumers.

Businesses are now looking to move to de-globalized or resilient supply chains. This means bringing back some manufacturing nearshore and alternate sites with flexibility to alter production lines and supply chains based on demand.

Investing in technologies to improve supply chain resilience

To boost productivity, companies are increasingly investing in new technologies. According to IDC, in a few years, companies will adopt technology that will reduce supply chain bottlenecks by 10%. Businesses will also invest in services and software that enhances productivity and use AI to do more with fewer workers.

With frameworks like robotics as a service and technology as a service, smaller companies can also benefit from supply chain automation and compete with larger enterprises. Significant innovation and seismic operational changes will hold the key to the future of supply chains.

Boost pay and increase opportunities for workers to improve productivity 

Given the difficulty of hiring workers and retaining them, businesses must look at boosting their pay and increasing opportunities for them to develop new skills and gain knowledge about the business.

Investing in people will support the work environment that will align with the company’s mission with the career goals of the workers. By retaining employees and boosting their skills, business operations will become more productive.

In conclusion

The pandemic has given businesses a chance to reinvent their supply chains. The focus is on building dynamic organizations that are flexible in operations and highly resilient to global disruptions.

Businesses have to be resilient and capable of adapting to major disruptions so that they can develop long-term solutions and strategies to complex challenges. Adoption of innovative and sustainable practices will be the key to fixing supply chain challenges in 2022 and beyond.

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Automation alone can be inflexible and expensive since robots are typically designed to carry out only one specific task. The companies are realizing that the best option is to collaborate robots and human workers thus combining the speed and strength of robots with the skill and creativity of humans.

Some companies are now deploying robots to perform simple and repetitive tasks and allowing their human workforce to focus on tasks that require deeper strategizing and thinking.

This new way of collaboration between humans and robots is termed as “cobot” which means that each type of worker is allowed to focus on the task that they can perform best.

The cobot market is expected to be worth $18 billion by 2030 as per a report from Root Analysis.

The need for transformation and challenges

The need for transformation goes beyond this pandemic. With the ever-changing market needs, the manufacturing industry is under pressure to meet the modern demands of customization, quality expectations, high product variability, and faster product cycles.

Today, customers expect delivery guarantees and when they don’t get what they want, they can find another source. Therefore, good inventory management accompanied by the ability to drive goods through the supply chain at a high speed has become a must-have.

To tackle these challenges pairing robots with human skills has become the need of the hour. However, there are certain challenges with automation. Automation is time-consuming and expensive to design. The precision robots require specific coding at each step and rely on predictable and uniform tools and parts. With a slight fluctuation in any part, the machine doesn’t function properly and the production line may come to a halt as a result, long production schedules.

Similarly, relying only on the human workforce to handle huge, bulky parts can make the work strenuous, dangerous, and slow-paced. Moreover, repetitive motions may cause stress injuries. Furthermore, uncomfortable and exhausted workers are more prone to making mistakes, reducing productivity and quality.

Supply chain adoption of the human and robot collaboration

Now, deploying cobots has become simpler and faster nowadays. Unlike conventional robotics, the industrial robots are now loaded with sensors to detect the presence of humans around them and are enabled with force and speed limits that minimize any impacts.

With new technologies like artificial intelligence, IoT and cloud, robots are now able to autonomously navigate the facility as they have the in-built intelligence to identify any barrier and make a decision about how to respond to such situations. IoT enables the robots to capture data in real-time about a task while cloud is helping to drive improvements in robotics. Cloud coupled with IoT allows organizations to monitor, operate, and manage robots from anywhere which has drastically enhanced the usage of robots in the workplace.

Additionally, the cost of ‘cobots’ is becoming increasingly affordable- from complete purchase to paying rent per month/week/day/hour options is making it easier for even small businesses to justify their expense. Research done by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology further boosts the ROI, according to this report human-robot collaborations are 85 percent more productive than either of them working alone.

Working in collaboration

The idea of only machine programing and maintenance may not work successfully as there is always a need for human skills and adaptability. With products becoming more customized and varied to the customer needs and local markets, the economics of complete automation does not fit in full. The time required and the vast engineering costs and the time to bring up a completely automated line for a complex product can never be paid back before the product needs to be changed.

The best option is to combine the strength, speed, and precision of industrial robots with the skill, dexterity, and judgment of human workers. With such collaboration, human workers can perform tasks that require flexibility while the robots can manage tasks that make the best use of their speed and strength.

The future of robots in supply chain management

The future of robots in the supply chain seems to be bright. The growing market demand will encourage robotic vendors to innovate further and bring advanced functionality to the supply chain. This will prompt more companies to invest in robotics and make their supply chains more efficient.

The collaboration between humans and robots will help supply chains to deliver remarkable customer service and cost to serve while refining business performance. Therefore, the businesses that embrace this change will quickly disrupt the competitor that sits idle and believes it is at the top.

With increasing cost pressures and a focus on customer centricity, the adoption of robotics will only increase.

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Managing the transportation of temperature-controlled products continues to grow increasingly. According to Pharmaceutical Commerce’s annual BioPharma Cold Chain Sourcebook- in 2021 the pharma cold chain logistics is predicted to be $16.6 billion industry. This includes the transport of temperature-controlled goods along a supply chain through refrigerated and thermal packaging procedures and the logistics planning to safeguard the integrity of the shipments.

Understanding the pain points

In the healthcare industry, the pharmaceutical cold chain is a key part of the supply chain and cold chain logistics services help the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry maintain a continuous supply of drugs from distributors and suppliers in various locations.

Nowadays more high-value active ingredients are being used in drug manufacturing that have a short shelf life and come with strict temperature requirements. Hence the need for monitoring and temperature control through the complete supply chain has grown manifolds. Even the drugs that are typically safe at room temperature may need practices to avoid the spikes that come with related transportation.

Logistics providers are now receiving increasing requests for Controlled Room Temperatures which involves the usage of refrigerants, insulated containers, temperature-monitoring electronics, and thermal blanketing. With products being handled multiple times from suppliers to end-user, there is a requirement of an assemblage of temperature controls to maintain quality, coordinated actions, and monitoring tools along the entire supply chain.

The biggest challenge with cold chain logistics is to maintain a certain temperature range throughout the delivery cycle. Multiple variables impact the length of time a product’s temperature is considered controlled. Temperature-controlled transportation requires specialized equipment and trucks, and skilled drivers.

Monitoring the temperature is another huge challenge and without that in place pharmaceutical manufacturers lose control over their goods as it moves up in the supply chain.

Besides that, increasing pharmaceutical mandates and globalization is causing many pharma manufacturers to implement more strict protocols to stay ahead of the regulation. For instance, in European Union, almost 80% of pharma products need temperature-controlled transportation.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on the cold chain’s role in the pharmaceutical industry. With temperature-controlled vaccines for the virus, there is a need for optimizing the entire supply chain for the industry.

Traceability across the supply network

To ensure product quality there is a need for a system to track unit-level items, identifying issues, finding an optimized solution, communicate an action plan, and compose a response. Supply networks function based on the trading relationships between manufacturers, producers, retailers, suppliers, distributors, and consumers. Full traceability across the supply network that includes visibility across final products, raw materials, and intermediaries across trading partners and to the end consumer.

Monitoring

The companies that outsource logistics, their carriers and providers become an important part of the process with a high level of risk. To avoid the risk, recordable devices such as RFID tags and sensor technologies can enable companies to manage and monitor supply chains.

Digitization and Visibility

Most of the pharma companies are now working towards digitization. The main objective is visibility on demand into each business process right from production to sale. By digitizing the entire supply chain process pharma companies get better control and coordination and they can base their decisions on reliable data and information. The use of technologies such as IoT to collect real-time and relevant data and cloud platforms- to manage the data and make sense of it for your business needs and supply chain.

The demand for visibility across the supply chain due to increase in globalization that includes temperature monitoring and location irrespective of where in the world product is moving, is driving the technology market to create solutions to deliver and track data in real–time.

Final Word

To meet the varying demands and not to mess up an already complex process, the cold chain logistics in the pharmaceutical industry needs to be based on three points- service, agility, and cost-effectiveness.

Furthermore, with the expanding reach of the pharmaceutical cold chain sector the logistic providers, manufacturers, and carriers will need to continue to coordinate their efforts to address the ongoing cold chain challenges in the pharmaceutical industry.

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For most of the businesses, supply chains are the lifeblood. Collaboration across  various suppliers, processes, software has long led to creation of huge data off the back of even small-scale supply chains. Unfortunately, the data generated is useless in its raw form, however, when businesses leverage the power of analytics to create insights from them can help them in making informed decisions and run supply chain networks seamlessly.

Today, analytics is advancing at a breakneck pace, from developing innovations around the cloud, democratizing technologies, new AI capabilities and much more; various Analytics trends are gaining traction in the market.

With this horizon and data analytics technology on the upward path, it is critical to stay informed of what’s new and upcoming. Here we have compiled key supply chain analytics trends for 2022.

Supply Chain Analytics Trends for 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that agility is essential to avoid significant supply chain disruption during these unprecedented times. Over the last two years, competitive advantage within supply chains has relied on the ability of all businesses to adapt quickly, embrace new technologies, and find innovative solutions.

Analytics that highlights the trepidations as they arise can help in achieving this much needed agility. However, a customized approach is required for businesses to focus on getting better insights from their software and align it with business outcomes.

AI and ML will become more intelligent

In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) space has been complex, with more companies entering the space than before. However, as we begin to enter a more mature space in 2022, more companies will invest in AI-driven automated insights. Low-code and no-code will democratize artificial intelligence. While data scientists will continue to focus on high-value issues, the participation will increase in advanced analytics utilizing automation, natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning. More responsible AI will reduce the gap from design to innovation.

More businesses will move to the Cloud

While the migration to the cloud provides various opportunities and advantage to the businesses, such as scaling analytics processes, it also means they are bound to governance around data ownership, data access, and data control.

In 2022, analytics will finally cross the gap to the cloud. Adoption of Cloud technology is steadily growing as businesses seek to leverage the big data already available in the cloud repositories. These businesses are geared up to take the benefit of cloud native computing and reap the benefits of easier analytics access.

Data Fabric will become the base for the distributed enterprise

With online sales channels and digital businesses proliferate and remote working becoming a norm, a complex and diverse ecosystem of applications, devices, and data infrastructure is created. Especially, data infrastructure can extent on-premises, hybrid-cloud, multi-cloud, single-cloud, or a combination of these, extended across regional boundaries with no single solution to combine all this data together.

This year, organizations will create Data Fabric to drive organization-wide data and analytics to automate many of the data exploration, preparation, and integration. Data fabric will help in unifying the data assets spread across different formats, locations, and latency using physical, logical, or hybrid approaches. These data fabrics will enable organizations to choose their preferred approach that will lead to reduced time-to-delivery and make it a preferred Data Management approach in 2022.

Data Mesh architectures will become more appealing

As companies grow in size, central data teams have to deal with wide range of functional units and associated data consumers that makes it difficult to understand data requirements across cross-functional teams and provide right set of data products to consumers. Data Mesh offers a new decentralized data architecture approach for analytics that intends to remove the hurdles and take data decisions nearer to those who understand the data.

Beginning this year, big enterprises with distributed data environments will implement a data mesh architecture. With different domains or functional units within large organizations have a better understanding of how the data should be used, enabling the domains implement and define their own data infrastructure results in lesser iterations until business needs are met and are of high quality.

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Supply chains involve a series of processes that takes a product from the manufacturer to the consumer. For supply chain networks to function suitably, they require operational and management support.

Choosing a career in the supply chain industry- here is all that you need to know

A career in the supply chain industry offers so much diversity. It gives you an in-depth overview of the complete organization where you not only learn the suppliers’ business but learn customers’ business as well. There are many departments from production, procurement, shipping, finance, and accounting to warehousing, marketing, R&D, and sales.

In this constantly and ever-changing industry you can gain a variety of experiences. Simply put, the industry offers something for everyone- there are numerous opportunities for those who like to be led and inspired, and for those who like to lead and manage.

To get started with a career in supply chain management, here are some important things to consider-

Understanding the supply chain industry

Depending upon the industry and organization, supply chain management roles can vary. One needs to keep in mind the size of the company as well as ownership as these factors can have a significant impact on your career. In big enterprises, you may have to start working within a function or segment of the supply chain that has a lot of resources. Whereas, in smaller organizations, you might have to manage multiple tasks that may give you wide exposure to the supply chain processes, but has limited resources. Therefore, it is vital to understand the requirements of the industry thoroughly before you begin your journey.

Pick a supply chain management area that interests you

There are innumerable career options within supply chain management, however, you must opt for an area that interests you. You should get yourself acquainted with that specific area by reading about topics related to it. This will help you to determine whether you want to pursue it. Typically people choose the following career paths in the supply chain field-

• Production/Operations Management
• Supply chain planning and/or Technology
• Supply Management/ Procurement
• Distribution Management/ Logistics

Keep yourself abreast with the latest and upcoming trends in supply chain management

You can keep yourself updated with the latest trends and technologies in supply chain management as it will allow you to take important career decisions. You can enroll for supply chain management sessions or read blogs or can engage in various discussions forums.

What qualification do I need to start a career in supply chain management?

The most common way to pursue career in supply chain is a bachelor’s degree in SCM, logistics or international transport. In addition there are various courses available such as CPM (Certified Purchasing Manager), CPIM Certified in Production and Inventory Management, Certified Supply Chain Professional, Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Professional, and Certified in Logistics, Transportation, and Distribution.

You may also pursue a master’s degree in supply chain, logistics, and/or transport. Doing MBA is also a great option.

How do I enter the supply chain industry?

There are several ways to break into the supply chain industry. Typically people start by using the services of recruitment agencies or by putting up a profile on various job portals. One can also use networking- looking out for industry-type events in your area that can give you an opportunity to meet and interact with professionals.

Another option to get real-world experience is by looking for a supply chain internship that is closely related to the job role that you are interested in.

What career options do I have in the supply chain industry?

There are many entry-level jobs that you can explore that do not require prior experience but only some kind of degree/diploma or certification. These jobs require a period of on-job training. For instance- cost estimators, quality controllers, customer relations, marketing and advertising, and buyers.

But that is not all, supply chain management offers many other possibilities as well such as –IT specialists, Data Managers, Finance Managers, Human Resource Personnel.

In case you are graduated with a bachelor or master’s degree in the supply chain you can also consider the following career options-supply chain analyst, supply chain coordinator, production planner/ inventory controller, purchasing agent, logistician, procurement analyst, and warehouse manager.

Final Word

Supply chain management is a vast field that offers a lot of opportunities. All you need to do is to carefully choose your niche and then set about gaining relevant knowledge and expertise.

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A push supply chain is driven by long-term projections of consumer demand whereas in a pull supply chain, process is driven by actual consumer demand.

Here is all that you need to know about the push, pull, and hybrid supply chain models.

Understanding Supply Chains

A supply chain involves multiple steps; products begin out as raw materials and then the manufacturer acquires raw materials and convert them into goods. The finished product is then shipped to the distribution facility. Next, the distribution facility uses the goods to stock the retail channel, ecommerce business or a fulfilment center. Lastly, the products get delivered to the consumer

Push Supply Chain Model

This strategy is based on the principle where projected demand determines what enters the system. For instance, umbrellas are pushed to retailers a month before the rainy season begins. The advantage of this model include-

• The companies have predictability in the supply chain since they know what they will get and when- even before it is delivered to them.
• They can plan their production to meet their needs.
• It also gives retailers time to prepare a space to store the stock when they receive it.

Pull Supply Chain Model

Just-in-Time strategy is used under the pull supply chain model where products are not produced unless an order is received. Therefore, under this system, the production is done ‘as required’ instead of forecasting the demand. For instance, a direct computer seller waits until an order is received to build a custom computer for the consumer.

With this strategy, companies can avoid the cost of carrying inventory that may not sell. However, there is a risk that the company might not have enough inventory to meet the demand in case they are unable to ramp up production quickly. This strategy is especially useful for companies that face low product mix, high demand uncertainty, and low importance of economies of scale.

Hybrid Supply Chain Model

Technically every supply chain is a mix of push and pull strategies known as a hybrid model. For instance, a company might choose a push-based supply chain strategy, but it stops at the retail outlet waiting for the consumer to “pull” the good off the shelf. Under this supply chain model, the manufacturers may decide to produce inventories of raw materials but wait until the price goes up and then release it. The hybrid supply chain is generally suggested for goods that have great importance of economies of scale and high demand uncertainty. For instance, a laptop manufacturing company stocks up on components and raw materials. However, they do not assemble a laptop until an order is received. So they initially use a push strategy and later move to the pull model during the production and assembly process. Since most of the profit comes from the service contract, not the laptop, the whole goal is to maximize Average Revenue per unit through the availability of the product which is important in the competitive market.

However, product availability will impact the products in two ways, giving the different customer attitude that the company is serving-

• Customers who have a strong brand loyalty may wait for significant availability and launches.
• Customers with less brand loyalty- who focus more on availability and price; the impact of product availability on the average revenue per unit is substantial since there is a low margin to it. 

Final Word

The need for two different supply chain strategies depends upon the products and their lifecycle. Companies may need a push-based approach for new products with sturdy consumer loyalty to manage shortage, fair allocation and priorities such as key accounts, retail significances or wholesale requirements. Whereas the pull-based supply chain model is used for other products which have less brand loyalty.

In most cases, the hybrid supply chain model works the best. A hybrid strategy would give a significant advantage to the company compared to pure push or pull supply chain models. It minimizes the inventory holding and delivery lead time cost, which is the cost of the period since a consumer places an order and it is fulfilled.

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The years 2020 and 2021 were hugely disruptive years. 72% of the companies experienced external disruptions to their manufacturing supply chain as per 3D Hub’s Supply Chain Resilience Report.

After years of globalization, trade disruptions such as US-China trade war, Brexit and the ongoing pandemic is prompting economies to reduce dependency on global integration and focus on themselves and their neighbors. Many manufacturers are trying to reduce their dependency on China as pandemic exposed the fragility of the supply chain network, be it due to factory lockdown, tariffs or logistics disruptions. However, global supply chain network revamping has to be followed carefully without hampering critical relationships.

Only 21 percent of the respondents in a recent survey done by Gartner indicated that they have a highly resilient network today; that means good visibility and the flexibility to shift sourcing, distribution, and manufacturing activities much faster. This advocates that growing resilience will be a primacy for many as they emerge from the ongoing crisis. According to this survey, more than half are going to be highly resilient in the next two to three years.

Diversifying sourcing – a vital step to build a resilient supply chain network

Last year, when the COVID crisis began in China, known to be the world’s factory the entire supply chain was disrupted across industries. Diversifying sourcing became an obvious way to mitigate risks in future.

However, to design a multi-sourcing strategy, it is essential that the supply chain leaders know their supplier network in-depth and should be able to classify suppliers not just by spend, but also by revenue impact in case of a disruptive event.

Diversification can be achieved by giving business to additional suppliers or working with a single supplier who can produce goods at several locations.

Predictably, the increasing interest in supply chain diversification brings to the fore the theme of re-shoring or near-shoring which goes arm-in-arm with a bigger focus on domestic markets. A Standard Chartered research indicated that 74% of US corporations and 84% of European companies are prioritizing their home regions as a source of growth.

All this calls for more production nearer to the home and to make supply chains less vulnerable. The organizations are now assessing their complete sourcing strategy and supply chain network design. This approach will ensure that the companies have multiple options and can determine the right balance between off-shore and near-shore manufacturing.

Multiple choice in the supply chain also means a wider opportunity to analyze cost, range of goods available, and location. Diversifying sourcing can also encourage competition among suppliers to drive down prices.

However, to diversify sourcing the suppliers also need to keep in mind certain factors to determine their supply chain network’s optimal resilience.

Vital Partners

While large enterprises might have resources to invest in a diversified network, their vital suppliers might not. Supply chain leaders will have to evaluate if their partners are weakened by the present conditions and are not able to support diversification strategy. In that case, they will have to look for more capable partners or slow down and may have to consider supportive actions.

More resilience involves more cost

An organization may choose to absorb the cost, or raise prices for its customers or share them with upstream suppliers. Similarly, the cost of not investing in resilience can also be high in terms of longer lead times, tariffs, negative impact on the brand, or decreased customer satisfaction.

National policies and incentives

Governments in many countries are now offering incentives to enterprises that move manufacturing closer to the end consumer or back. Bringing manufacturing back to the United States got a major push from politicians.

The crux

With the ongoing pandemic, there has been a heightened desire to shift production and sourcing out of China to other locations in Asia. Although this trend was going on for some time due to rising production costs in China but has strengthened by a sense of over-reliance.

However, shifting from China is easier said than done. A study from CBRE, a commercial real estate giant cited last year that while production costs in Vietnam were 30% lesser than in China, but the productivity was almost 20% lower and there were more quality issues. Industry experts suggest that there is more benefit in the ‘China plus one’ strategy for sourcing considering manufacturing capacity and sophistication in the Chinese industries.

All these things suggest that supply chains may be becoming more resilient by diversifying sourcing, but it’s not going to be that simple. The companies will have to still juggle with complexities and would need versatile and agile supply chain providers. 

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