A recent study, “Supply Chain Risk Management: Building a Resilient Global Supply Chain,” conducted by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company, reveals that there are still significant gaps in supply chain management practices, and offers actionable advice for companies to help minimize supply chain disruptions.

The trend toward globalization and the new challenges this brings to distributed organizations have placed increased pressure on those who have not managed supply chain risks appropriately. According to the research, best-in-class companies have adopted a more holistic view of supply chain risks compared with lower performing peers and have made more progress in improving their supply chain processes and infrastructure–putting them in a better position to foresee, spot, and respond to potential disruptions. These organizations are:

–55 percent more likely than laggards to be at a proactive or resilient stage of supply chain risk management

–Twice as likely as others to have no major impact as a result of supply chain disruption

–Approximately 40 percent more likely than others to be able to respond to a 20 percent increase or decrease in customer demand for their product within the month

The report authors advise organizations to enhance supply chain risk management across supply chain network design efforts, sales and operations planning, inventory and demand planning. Likewise, on the supply chain execution side, companies need to improve their logistics and transportation management capabilities, secure alternative third-party supply chain partners if needed, and ensure proactive alerting process and response management for disruptions.

Source: PR-Inside.com