The Does Logistics Matter? Podcast is all about trends and innovations in supply chain and logistics. This episode features Pieter van den Broecke, Managing Director Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany at Manhattan Associates. Regular listeners to the show will recognize Pieter from earlier episodes: Innovations in Warehousing and The Impact of a Changing Customer Journey on Supply Chains. Thank you, Pieter, for another informative and fun conversation.
Pieter and I spoke about how the global pandemic has changed consumer behaviour and what that means for supply chains.
Managing Inventory is Increasingly Complex
Supply chains are under increasing pressure. There are shortages in raw materials and parts. In the meantime, consumers and businesses alike are getting more demanding. B2B buyers acting more and more like B2C customers is also adding to the strain.
Now more than ever efficiently managing your inventory is of the utmost importance.
The Network Effect
Pieter touches on how the change in behaviour both on the B2B and the B2C side is causing increased complexity in managing inventory. On the B2C side, the increasing number of ways to ship products to your customers is adding to the complexity. When an order comes in, will you ship from the DC or ship from the store? When an item is bought online, will you ship it or will be picked up in the store? If an item is bought in the store will the customer take it home immediately, or have it delivered?
In B2B supply chains are acting more and more like B2C supply chains, moving companies closer and closer to their customers. The trend of having products on stock that are still owned by your suppliers, or shipping directly from your supplier’s stock is one of the ways inventory management is getting more complex on the B2B side.
Supply chains used to be linear, but that is changing. Supply chains are changing into supply networks. For Pieter, the question you should ask yourself is: how can I execute at the speed of my customer in a network environment? Spoiler alert: the answer lies in a holistic approach to supply and demand.
Do you want to learn more about how to deal with the increasing complexity of inventory management and how a holistic approach and supply networks can enable companies to execute at increasing speed?
This blog post is sponsored by Manhattan Associates
