SMEs need modern supply chain tools to achieve growth

In this era where global supply chains are becoming increasingly complex, businesses are being urged to leverage tech-oriented supply chain management systems to make work processes easier.

That is because these supply chain management systems offer huge customer satisfaction and direct cost reduction potential for SMEs.

Indeed, without the proper supply chain management strategies, action plans and processes, SMEs have been known to lose business to competitors who have implemented the same into their work processes.

SMEs can choose from among a wide variety of supply chain management software to support the daily decision-making of complex matters like what to buy, when to buy it, at how much and from where best to buy it.

Complex markets

But most SMEs do not have supply chain management systems and this is something that has to change.

We are living in an increasingly global, complex and fast-paced business era wherein the importance of leveraging supply chain management systems cannot be gainsaid.

Unfortunately, in my experience, many SMEs are not taking Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems seriously enough and, as a result, they are losing market share and, ultimately, money.

Once small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners understand that they have an untapped gold mine right in front of their eyes in the form of supply chain management systems, and use them accordingly, they will see their profit margins increase significantly.

Effective management of the supply chain process must take into account coordination of all the different aspects of this chain as quickly as possible without losing any of the quality or customer satisfaction, and also while still keeping the cost down.

Accurate data

This also entails entering accurate data into the supply chain management systems.

However, a few understand the true value of this, despite the fact that we are living in an age of information technology where data is everything.

It is worrying that most SMEs are still not maintaining the simplest data, especially those I have interacted with in my field; such as product lead times or minimum stock levels, in their SCM systems.

Many often leave these fields empty and instead prefer manual calculations while sitting in front of the computer.

Simple supply chain management systems are not being followed, but this is one of the areas that deny businesses the much-needed revenues.

Indeed, while many small enterprise owners would want to integrate supply chain management systems into their businesses, a number of factors inhibit them from doing this such as heavy workloads.

Under such circumstances, it is advisable that an SME owner teach their employees to run the supply chain management systems so that when they are unable, the processes will still run regardless.