Current challenges across various stages of supply chains in India:
Plan: 66 percent organisations stated that poor forecasting accuracy is the biggest challenge followed by 51 percent asserted that lack of end-to-end supply chain visibility is a challenge in better planning.
Source: A majority of 56 percent stated that supplier quality and delivery performance remain top concern, followed by 51 percent stating uncertainty in supplier delivery to be the top challenge. This reduces purchaser's role to transactional activities undermining their ability to carry out more strategic activities.
Make: 78 percent stated that poor integration between manufacturing systems and business plan was a top challenge while 61 percent said unavailability of right resources with technical skills was a major challenge which highlights the need for greater efforts in skill building.
Deliver: Poor ability to meet customer demand on time while incurring higher cost to serve is a double whammy that was cited as a challenge by 98 percent. Only 22 percent cited GST related challenges as a top concern today for supply chain professionals.
Initiatives being taken to improve supply chain performance:
73 percent organisations said operations excellence is the most commonly pursued initiative and some organisations have initiated the drive to digitise their supply chain. Only 22 per cent are pursuing large transformational initiatives that impact all the aspects of the supply chain.
Mindsets creating roadblocks: Top hindrances for large scale supply chain transformations cited were legacy mindset/resistance to change (33 percent) and limited bandwidth of management for supply chain transformation (28 percent).
Technology adoption across supply chain: Majority organisations are implementing technologies in silos across various stages of the supply chain, which makes thorough integration difficult. Only about one-fifth of respondents said that they have implemented technology that integrates across all functions.
Key emerging themes for supply chains of the future: While selecting themes for the future, most supply chain leaders (80 percent) expect the future to be more customer centric, while comaparable number of them believe that they need to strike a balance across other important stakeholders by improving on sustainability (54 percent), inventory turns and costs (51 percent) and digitization (49 percent).
Success factors that are likely to enable supply chain transformation: 70 percent said leaders have to drive the supply chain transformation agenda across the organisation while 14 percent said investments in core technologies/new platforms will determine supply chain transformation.
Technology options being explored for supply chain transformation: Application of technology in planning and forecasting (44 percent), building customised tools (34 percent) and usage of integrated supply chain platforms (32 percent) are the top technology related choices of supply chain leaders. The report highlights that use of IOT, MES, RPA are beginning to gain traction.
Skills required for supply chains of the future: Operations strategy (63 percent), scenario analysis (56 percent) and data proficiency (51 percent) emerged as the top skills required to successfully drive supply chains of the future.
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