Supply Chain Market Teachings

The business marketplace, and especially in this global economy, can learn a great deal from the experience and the practices, especially in the areas of continuous improvement and collaboration.  I put this out for consideration and evaluation because it seems simple to me and yet so difficult for many to realize and embrace. The global supply chain is a practice based on flexibility and collaboration that not only meets the demands of the marketplace and also provides guidance and new capabilities that are themselves disrupting markets through both capabilities and collaboration.  These are the very capabilities that can bring dramatic benefits to other markets and frankly, one of the most surprising aspects in my opinion is that these practices and capabilities are not recognized and reproduced by other market segments and participants to improve their own capabilities.

I think that the retail marketplace and especially as it relates to the omni market is probably the single greatest example of a market segment that calls out for the practices and and capabilities represented by the supply change collaborative practices.  The omni market is really a sister type of market as the supply chain from the perspective of a market that requires the interaction and support of many partners, technologies and functionalities in order to meet the demands of the market. In addition the similarity also includes a focus on shaping and disrupting the market.  These points together lead to the projection and positive comparison to each other. The challenge for the omni market though is the maturity of the collaboration and the culture of command and control that remains.

Another challenge for the omni market retailer is the engineering practice of continuous improvement and more importantly the discipline to maintain the practice over a long period of time.  This continuous improvement practice is the key to success and foundation of the collaborative partnership that drives the supply chain and will be required to drive the omni market collaborative partnership development.  Without this continuous improvement practice and especially the discipline to maintain the practice I am afraid that the omni market retailers will not be able to maintain the practices that allow the retailer to sense and respond to change.  This ability to sense and respond to change and direction in market conditions is one of the critical measures for success in the omni market.

Fortunately for the omni market retailers they are already connected into a network of collaborative partnerships through their connection and relationship with the supply chain network.  The retailer must, however, create their own collaborative partnership network that connects and builds collaborative relationships with their critical suppliers for product, connectivity service offerings and social networking.  This is truly a social networking type of organism that utilizes the social network methods and connectivity practices to develop and extend their own market. This omni market network provides an opportunity for partnerships with suppliers for both their partners and their competitors.  As an example, all retailers in the market utilized UPS, FedEx and USPS for parcel shipments to their customers in various levels of volume and capabilities. These connections work because the end goals of the competitors are similar and the competitors have a separate relationship with the carriers.