The latest developments in supply chain management

Supply-chain Sleuths

A regular feature dedicated to providing the global packaging industry with a broad overview of the latest developments in supply chain management. In particular, those required to help companies counter the impact of the corona virus.

Survive and thrive

Never in the history of modern manufacturing has there been a greater challenge than the one that is facing us today. To help companies to meet this challenge, SPN has been scouring the latest business reports in order to provide packaging companies worldwide with the best tools possible to confront it.

These strategies are designed to help the industry to overcome the setbacks that Covid-19 has thrust upon us all and to provide positive options to help organisations survive and thrive in an uncertain future.

Restructuring for global resilience

With the Covid-19 crisis, fundamental changes in consumer behaviour, supply chains, and routes to market are forcing companies off balance, in particular the global packaging industry. Responding to the pandemic has underscored the need for companies to accelerate the adoption of agile ways of working and value chain transformation to help outmanoeuvre this uncertainty. Becoming an Intelligent Enterprise means shifting from top-down decision-making, empowering teams guided by purpose, driven by data, powered by technology and enabled by cloud for faster speed to market. It calls for erraising rigid structures that emphasise territory and control and creating a porous organisation with modules that plug and play. The Intelligent Enterprise is capable of dynamic self-management and continual adaptation. It is built for agility, resiliency and growth.

Adopting a distributed global services model can also help packaging companies to diffuse 12 the risks. Furthermore, automating routine tasks with human and machine models, can also help to serve businesses and to position them for growth post Covid-19. So today more than ever, supply chain efficiency is critical. Companies need to supply goods and services quickly, safely and securely. They also need to develop a rapid response strategy to address current disruptions and to repurpose and reshape their supply chains for the future by increasing both resilience and responsibility.

Creating liquidity in the face of Covid 19

In the face of the Covid-19 crisis, leaders have had to act quickly to optimise their company’s resilience to the current situation by rebalancing their strategy for risk and liquidity. This must be done whilst assessing opportunities for growth coming out of the downturn. Current and future viability depends upon swift action, including near-term actions for stability and strategic moves that will create new futures for the packaging industries.

“ For some, liquidity has become a matter of survival “

Immediate action is also needed to address short-term liquidity challenges, as well as to provide for unforeseen costs and generate funding to invest in new opportunities. Many CEOs are faced with plummeting sales and revenue and increased costs. Interventions to adapt may require investments in key technologies, processes and people.

8For some, liquidity has become a matter of survival. Actions taken now can have an immediate impact on the survival of a company, how quickly it rebounds from the global downturn, and its financial health and sustainability going forward.

Pairing people with opportunity

Organisations globally are experiencing workforce disruption at an unprecedented scale and speed. Virtually all companies are still determining how we will work in the short and long-term. But speed is of the essence, as our workforces and communities try to function and perform, while struggling to cope with what is happening in their daily lives.

Managers across all industries are rising to the challenge, helping to navigate workforce movements that address the urgent need to shift to a remote workforce to protect and empower employees, serve customers and establish business continuity. Expertise in developing agile workforce strategies is critical to keeping the global economy viable and helping people and their families survive financially, both now and in the future. Opportunities are emerging as companies and industries work together to keep people in paying work.

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People, organisations and communities need answers now. Plans need to be fit-for-purpose today but also capable of evolving as the global health and economic environment changes. Businesses, governments and citizens, all play critical roles in establishing a human-centred, systems-minded approach that promotes shared workforce resilience. This is not a oneoff process.

It requires the development of persistent capabilities and relationships across stakeholder groups. CEO’s are on the front line of this response, equipped with the advanced technologies and intelligence they need to help navigate these sudden, massive workforce shifts.

Reset mind-set

The impact of the coronavirus outbreak has forced companies to move at an unprecedented speed in order to continue to serve their customers with quality products and services, whilst caring for their employees with compassion. Companies need to reset their mind-sets and re-evaluate how contact centres are leveraged, how employees deliver relevant customer experiences, where they work, and how digital channels can be used to support business continuity through the crisis and beyond. The global Covid-19 pandemic has forever changed our experience as customers, and employers. As a result, our attitudes and behaviours are also changing. The crisis is fundamentally altering how and what consumers buy and is accelerating immense structural changes, particularly in the consumer goods industry. For example, once the immediate threat of the virus has passed, companies will need to consider the impact of these changes on the way we design, communicate, build and run the experiences that people need and want.

With these emerging new behaviours, organisations also have an opportunity to accelerate the pivot to digital commerce, by expanding existing offerings and creating new lines of service, in the same way that retailers have been rallying to provide “contactless” delivery and curb-side pick-up services for consumers. This acceleration will force companies to revisit and even reimagine their digital strategies in order to capture new marketplace opportunities and digital customer segments.

Facts and figures by courtesy of Accenture.

For further information go to: www.accenture.com

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commercial content

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