The Recession and changing business models

by Guest Posting on 2010-09-08 01:14:15

As the effects of recession ripple through the economy, consumer confidence declines leading to a drop in spending which creates multiple negative effects on different businesses. The Small and Medium organizations have taken different initiatives to tackle the issue to minimize the impact on their bottom line figures. Supply Chain Effectiveness became the key focal point that everyone is targeting to achieve.

Now the Supply Chain Agility is a practical imperative for most companies compared to a conference topic couple of years back. The focus shift from traditional planning tools to process play books that use tolls and point-of-use analytics coupled with process structures that emphasize governance mechanisms.

The emphasis will be on rapid informed decision making as a key component of risk management. Currently the companies are giving importance to Software as a service and other engagement models as companies seek to focus technology budgets on gaining a competitive advantage quickly without additional infrastructure. They are encoding outcome-based service engagements into contracts utilizing a managed business process services approach.

Nowadays ‘Business Intelligence’ is no longer a separate enterprise application category. A sharp shift in focus from the traditional technology-focused BI implementation that merely delivers the same tired descriptive and retrospective reports has changed. Instead, a unified science of supply chain analytics has emerged that delivers prescriptive analytics to decision makers at the point of use.

As a consequence, analytics has ceased to exist as a separate category and become a fundamental part of the decision support landscape.

Enterprises focusing on green initiatives are driving bottom line value and winning over customers. Streamlining the supply chain enables companies to decrease both human and manufacturing waste, optimize transportation networks and drive a leaner and greener business. Despite economic challenges, green initiatives driven by supply chain efficiency will continue to be a focus for companies.

Harish Kumar
General Manager-Middle East & Africa
Seagull Global Logistics, Dubai, UAE.