INTRODUCTION.
Pandemics can lead to a chaotic situation in the global supply chain, which will lead to survival difficulties. The World Economic Forum says the scale of this unprecedented crisis has yet to be fully realized. Various nationwide lock-downs continue or even temporarily freeze the flow of raw materials and finished goods, which will disrupt production as a result. In these situations, there is a need to explore the supply chain management strategies to overcome the covid-like conditions
Due to this outbreak, the severe trouble is caused by smoothly going operations. The manufacturing units, which are considered the backbone of any country’s economy, often meet full or partial closure in such situations. The logistics operations combined with fulfilling demands and supply were interrupted due to airport bans and by government restrictions. Hence, there are numerous potential operations in which work is still essential, and addressing constraints of the current period. Here arrives the significance of being digital. However, simply utilizing digital technologies does not equalize to creating a digitized, autonomous supply chain — it also requires connected supply chain technologies across planning, procurement, manufacturing and logistics that serve beyond the company’s four walls. That’s the differentiation between “being digital and “doing digital”.
The future of supply chain strategy
To ensure a robust and sustainable supply chain future, companies must analyse current processes and identify opportunities for improvement, such as adding suppliers from different geographic areas to minimize the impact of world-scale issues.
By increasing the overall accessibility over the supply chain will help your enterprise to track their supplier from start to end i.e., from the time it leaves from manufacturer to the time they reach the warehouse. Increased responsiveness is also equally important; If the supply chain is started falling under some pressure, businesses require a stress-tested plan for shifting to new supply streams. so, it is essential to automate and digitize your supply chain.
How Sage X3 ERP can help to overcome this?
Supply chain management solutions have an incredibly important role in both keep up with demand and assure optimal efficiency through real-time monitoring of inventory. The right use of ERP in the supply chain can revolutionize your manufacturing processes.
Main features are:
- Purchase control
Sage X3 ERP can help you seamlessly to manage your purchasing process from beginning to end, starting with Requests for Quotes(RFQs) then input and follow up replies and integration into the price list base. Requisition features of Sage X3 helps your employees to send purchase request to their organization centralized purchase department.
Key capabilities include:
- Requests for proposal (RFPs)
- Pricing and discounts
- Supplier and product category management
- Purchase planning, ordering and requests
- Purchase orders, delivery, and scheduling
- Open orders and budget accounting
- Multi-level signature management
- Supplier invoice entry and returns
2. Inventory management
Sage X3 provides organizations with complete visibility of reliable local suppliers and their supply chains. By understanding the demands and supply modals of your business you can improve your inventory management. As X3 also helps for better stock order management and also warehouse operations. Also helps to gain quality control, stock balances and replenishment requirements. The use of automated business solutions helps you to manage procurement, improved distribution and better decision-making based on real-time data.
Key capabilities include:
- Product data and multiple units of measure
- Location management
- Inventory balances
- Quality control and sampling
- Replenishment and inter-site transfers
- Order release
- Stock movements
- Import tracking
- Mobile apps
3. Sales solutions
Sage X3 can help to increase productivity and drive better results for the sales team by monitoring the interactions prospects have with your companies and also by automating lead management. The sales team can do the document discussions and change the status of prospects as they move through the sales funnel. It also can integrate with the company’s sales department to provide invoices and quotes.
Key capabilities include:
- Product data and multiple units of measure
- Location management
- Inventory balances
- Quality control and sampling
- Replenishment and inter-site transfers
- Order release
- Stock movements
- Import tracking
- Mobile apps
4. Customer service integration
To stay competitive in the connected in the real world, it’s not enough to have the right product at the right time. Sage X3 makes you unique in your industry with exceptional services, such as informing consumers about real-time responses to inquiries via familiar cloud services and mobile devices and also gives you existing stock level and current pricing details.
Sage X3 gives you complete knowledge of customer activity to increase overall satisfaction. Full integration with sales, finance, warehouse, manufacturing and purchasing provides a complete understanding of customer actions within a single business management solution.
Key capabilities include:
- Contact management
- Salesforce automation
- Customer call centre support
- Warranty or service order management
- Knowledge-based solutions
- Marketing campaigns
5. Team collaboration
With Sage ERP X3, we can share business information in real-time across different departments and also it helps your company to make better decisions using business intelligence features. If business information like stock, inventory and logistics are not easily available across your company, then the result will be from a missed opportunity to unexpected supply chain disruptions. It also improves the efficiency and collaboration of your teams by integrating your documentation workflows into a single, cohesive and searchable library.
CONCLUSION
To summarize the above analysis, the economic disruption caused by the pandemic has flashed many chaotic situations in the world’s supply chain. So authorities use this crisis to take a fresh analysis of their supply chain network, understand their problems and take necessary actions to improve the robustness and efficiency. Leaders should find ideas to make their business operate better and give themselves an advantage.
The future of the supply chains is flexible and industries cannot completely depend on single-source suppliers. Instead, companies needed a supply chain model that helps future-proof procurement, which should meet their current needs and product management against new worldwide economic disruptions.
It’s time to adopt a new vision that is fit to the realities of the new era by leveraging the advanced supply chain technologies, which improves resilience and reduce the risks.