Extend Your Commitment to Supply Chain Sustainability

Take the next steps in improving supply chain sustainability

 Key Takeaways 

  • Invest in your business by extending your commitment to improving supply chain sustainability 
  • Enable consistent, real-time visibility into your supply chain with machine learning 
  • Balance supply and demand with integrated business planning 
  • Optimize the life of your products from concept to retirement with product life cycle management solutions 
  • Develop, execute, and track sales and operational strategies around your financial goals 
  • Minimize the impact of supply chain disruptions by taking a proactive, flexible position 
  • Lend credibility to your sustainability claims with supply chain visibility 

Most businesses understand the importance of supply chain sustainability. They want to be more sustainable, and they understand that sustainability efforts can improve their brand reputation and boost their bottom line. But identifying a commitment to supply chain sustainability is just the beginning — you need to find ways to carry through that vision.  

If you’ve already started your journey, this guide will walk you through some of the ways you can extend your efforts. Here are the next steps if you want to make your supply chain more sustainable.  

Enhance Supply Chain Visibility with Machine Learning 

If you want your supply chain to be as sustainable as possible, you need to know what’s happening in real time. Your supply chain tracking solution should be supported by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation to constantly update what’s happening in your supply chain.  

This level of visibility lets you track the progress of your goods and supplies in real time. It also lets you predict unexpected delays so you can make changes to suppliers as needed and safeguard peak operational performance. 

Balance Supply and Demand with Integrated Business Planning 

Integrated business planning (IBP) helps you balance supply and demand. Excessive supply costs your business money, but not being able to meet demand hurts sales and damages your reputation. By striking the right balance, you can manage revenue more efficiently and improve shareholder value.  

Short- and long-term planning solutions analyze the implications of supply chain activities and how they affect your revenues, expenses, and cash flow. This helps you keep pace with the constantly changing marketplace. Traditional supply planning, in contrast, drains resources, is inefficient, and doesn’t help you determine how your supply chain interacts with your overall business goals.  

With an integrated solution, you can save time on planning and determine where you need to make changes quickly. When you have accurate data and projections on your supply chain, you can more easily bring together stakeholders on decisions related to new products, inventory volumes, and capital investments.  

For example, an IBP solution lets you analyze how different volumes or various supplies affect the finances of your business. You can visualize plans and make projections based on the implications of different options, then choose the optimal path forward. Integrated business planning optimizes your revenue drivers and costs in a way that aligns with your business goals. 

Aim for Strategic Outcomes with Sales and Operations Planning 

To keep sales and operations planning (S&OP) costs at the ideal point for your business, you need the ability to create and distribute plans with logical workflows. An S&OP execution strategy lets you set up plans across multiple departments based on your budgets and financial goals. You can also track and forecast inventory performance over time and clearly visualize your capacity planning data. 

Position Yourself to Minimize the Impact of Supply Chain Disruptions 

Effective supply chain planning cannot be reactive. It must poise your company to preempt and proactively deal with situations before they become obstacles. In particular, you need to be ready to deal with import bans or other legal changes that threaten to disrupt your supply network and the reputation of your brand.  

For example, when the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issues Withhold Release Orders detaining shipments from certain parts of the world, you need to ensure that your business is positioned to weather this issue. To deal with a supply chain disruption, you need shared components, accelerated delivery cadences, and other solutions, such as turning production facilities into distribution centers. Importers who use these strategies reduce their lead times by eight to 10 weeks and cut their purchase order to ex-factory time down by an average of 13 weeks (from 17 to four weeks). 

Inject Credibility into your Sustainability Claims 

Consumers today know about greenwashing. They are not willing to blindly patronize companies that only pay lip service to sustainability. A traceable supply chain is essential if you want to back up your claims about sustainability. Sustainability can give you significant leverage from a marketing standpoint, but non-credible claims can hurt your brand. You need to make sure your sustainability efforts are credible and verifiable.  

Your business needs a sustainable supply chain if you want to balance supply and demand, minimize disruptions, and safeguard your image. Supply chain sustainability can help you improve planning at the store level, react to replenishment signals more flexibly, and streamline the S&OP process.  

Contact Logility to improve the sustainability of your supply chain 

At Logility, we create supply chain solutions that help you create, manage, and optimize a sustainable supply chain. We can help you take the next steps to a more sustainable supply chain. Interested in sustainability? Not sure where to go next? Then, let’s talk — contact us today.  

Or check out our practical guide to supply chain sustainability for some great ways to optimize your supply chain to drive your sustainability initiatives.

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