How to Improve Your Supply Chain Management
How a Communications Strategy Will Improve Your Supply Chain Management
The idea that a company can increase its competitiveness by focusing on how a company interacts with its customers is not new, but little has been accomplished to this end across corporate America. In 1992 the Harvard Business Review published a ground-breaking paper called Staple Yourself to an Order. I came across this paper several years after it was written while I was in an operations and logistics role, and it captured my imagination.
In essence, what the paper was claiming is that companies did not have an end-to-end process around customer relationship management. There were no processes in place to manage the customer at every interaction point in a consistent manner. There is a great chart in this document on page six entitled, “Why Orders Fall through the Cracks” (see below) that really captures the issue and illustrates a typical organizational structure and what happens to a customer going through the entire process of placing an order.
Supply Chain Management Process
It seems companies (20 years hence) are now becoming aware of the opportunity to increase competitive advantage by focusing on the supply chain management process. In 2011, IBM got behind this concept and updated the idea in their paper Re-staple Yourself to an Order. As IBM points out, the world has become more complex now and customers interact with companies through the web and mobile technologies and by numerous other means.
Interestingly though, their analysis of companies today is, and I quote, “One key factor is that rarely is there a clear ‘owner’ of the order management process within the business.” It is common that no one individual or function owns the process and systems to support order management end-to-end. That is where a communication strategy can be a huge advantage. A communication strategy that incorporates the vision and mission of the company and connects it to the audiences emotionally will provide the guidance and commonality to allow desperate process owners to “talk the talk and walk the walk” to so speak.
Frozen Fire is a Dallas internet marketing and video production company that helps companies harness the most powerful aspect of modern marketing—the internet—to engage customers in memorable and meaningful ways. Ways that ignite sales and business growth. Contact us to learn how we can help your business.