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Seven Studies in Supply Chain Visibility
Leveraging opportunities for supply chain finance to navigate global trade and growth; seven ways your bank can help your supply chain
New York — January 31, 2008 — Supply chain management is certain to sizzle on through 2008. Integrated physical and financial supply chains were once a possibility for successful trade; now they're essential.
For supply chain managers and their partners — from the finance department to the factory floor — there's fresh interest in understanding how supply chain practices help define effective working capital management. How you move goods and make payments related to your sourcing and inventory can dramatically affect the amount of cash your business carries in its "wallet."
But as you shop for the tools, tactics, platforms and partners that will help you manage your supply chain holistically, be sure to insist on a key component — visibility. Navigating through your strategy for global growth could be tough without it.
"WWWH"
Effective supply chain management is based on your ability to know the "what, where, when and how" of your trade operations in real time. The Web-enabled platforms, software programs and paper-to-electronic processing available through your banker can help you manage information and keep your operations as transparent as they need to be.
Remember, though, that another kind of visibility and transparency is also required for supply chain efficiency — an ability to "see" the ripple effects and consequences of changes you make in the way you're handling payables, receivables and inventory. What you anticipate as a solution may not be what you're really getting; and what looks like a major gain in efficiency for you may have an adverse financial or operational impact on partners and providers who constitute the other key links of your chain.
Visibility into your supply chain via certain tools and applications enables efficiencies, helps mitigate risk and maximizes use of your working capital. Here are some examples of what visibility of all kinds has meant to importers and exporters who, in partnership with their banker, are bringing their businesses to the next level through global growth.
For supply chain managers and their partners — from the finance department to the factory floor — there's fresh interest in understanding how supply chain practices help define effective working capital management. How you move goods and make payments related to your sourcing and inventory can dramatically affect the amount of cash your business carries in its "wallet."
But as you shop for the tools, tactics, platforms and partners that will help you manage your supply chain holistically, be sure to insist on a key component — visibility. Navigating through your strategy for global growth could be tough without it.
"WWWH"
Effective supply chain management is based on your ability to know the "what, where, when and how" of your trade operations in real time. The Web-enabled platforms, software programs and paper-to-electronic processing available through your banker can help you manage information and keep your operations as transparent as they need to be.
Remember, though, that another kind of visibility and transparency is also required for supply chain efficiency — an ability to "see" the ripple effects and consequences of changes you make in the way you're handling payables, receivables and inventory. What you anticipate as a solution may not be what you're really getting; and what looks like a major gain in efficiency for you may have an adverse financial or operational impact on partners and providers who constitute the other key links of your chain.
Visibility into your supply chain via certain tools and applications enables efficiencies, helps mitigate risk and maximizes use of your working capital. Here are some examples of what visibility of all kinds has meant to importers and exporters who, in partnership with their banker, are bringing their businesses to the next level through global growth.
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