Remaking The Retail Supply Chain

While the retail marketplace is remaking itself through the collaboration and cooperation of all partners involved, the retail supply chain is also in the midst of a tumultuous reimaging of the supply chain services and interactions of the supply chain partners.  The challenge with the supply chain is helping their supply chain partners in the retail market to catch up with the supply chain capabilities in not only service offering but most importantly in their collaboration practices and capabilities. The retail supply chain as a whole is really far ahead of the curve of collaborative networking to support the demands of the market and the retail supply chain must help their partners in the retail market to build a robust network to support the demands.  This extension of the retail supply chain network will drive a remaking of the entire retail supply chain to extend services and capabilities seamlessly across all partners.

The supply chain has been embracing the technology and practices of technology capabilities and services for a long time as a means to support the demands of supply chain partners and most importantly to as a means to address cost and transparency pressures from the supply chain market.  The supply chain and supply chain partners are now in a position where they can guide and support their retail market partners in their initiatives to develop and support a similar collaborative network. This would include a maintenance program that incorporates a robust continuous improvement program that reviews and analyzes the demands and the capabilities to address the demands of the marketplace efficiently and quickly.

The retail supply chain has been continuously building out the collaborative network foundation and the capabilities to communicate transparently across the supply chain for a long long time.  This supply chain has developed and embraced a process of continuous change that has supported the pressures and demands for improvements in efficiencies and transparency for years. This foundation now will be used to extend the supply chain capabilities and services across a wider spectrum of partners and outlets.  The supply chain foundation of services and technology will first help their extended retail partners to quickly plug in and take advantage of the services and technology and then to follow on with support and guidance in developing and supporting new services and capabilities.

This is how the retail supply chain will remake the network, not a rebuild but a continuation of the collaborative and continuous improvement practices across a wider network.  The retail supply chain has reached a level of capabilities and practices where they can spread the benefits deeper into the retail marketplace. The retail supply chain brings the benefits of technology and a continuous improvement process to the table to help incorporate these processes that embrace the change process rather than ingnore or fight the change process.  This is where the change will occur in the retail supply chain, and extension of the network deeper across the partners.

The supply chain will be encouraged to take a leadership role in the growth and remaking of the retail marketplace from the perspective of implementing and growing the collaborative network that can support a continuous improvement process from end to end of the network. This will require perseverance and patience in the supply chain partners to continue to push and it will require the retail marketplace to change themselves in both culture and practice to embrace and encourage change.