Daily Archives: October 14, 2013

Market Disruption Forces Supply Chain Change

Market Disruption Forces Supply Chain Change

Despite what the title of this recent article over on Just Style might suggest, market disruption does not drive supply chain change, it forces it. However, the article is right when it notes that having an efficient and fast-reacting supply chain should be a must for any brand or retailer.

The difference is slight, but important. Driving implies there is some guidance to the movement. But the nature of disruption, especially in today’s supply chain, does little to guide an organization that needs to respond, and do so quickly. The organization is forced to change, because failure to do often results in a change in liquidity status from profitable to bankruptcy.

And it’s not just demographic shifts that a retailer or brand needs to react to, but disruptions further down the supply chain. Even if a brand can react quickly to a change in consumer preferences and adapt its main product line to have the look, feature, or ruggedness demanded by its target customer base, if a fire takes out its main manufacturing plant, or a labour dispute cuts off production of a needed rare earth metal, or an act of piracy results in its shipment being stolen, what is the brand going to do?

Organizations need supply chains that can react fast, but they also need supply chains that are informed even faster. In order to react, supply chains need multi-tier visibility into critical product lines, such as the visibility that Resilinc can provide. Otherwise, all the market intelligence in the world on changing consumer consumption patterns won’t do them any good if they don’t see that a critical even in their supply chain prevents them from being able to react accordingly.