Supply Chain Segmentation

“The amateurs discuss tactics. The professionals discuss logistics.” Napoleon Bonaparte 

Choosing the right supply chain strategy is today a key success factor for a reliable and sustainable supply chain. There is no such thing as a “one-size-fits-all” solution. Different market and customer requirements within the company-specific product portfolio require different strategies. The entire production and distribution network must also be aligned with these strategies in order to be able to serve all segments optimally.

In addition, a suitable and agile supply chain organization with clear roles and responsibilities must be installed. This is the only way for companies to ensure that they use their resources in a targeted and waste-free manner. In this way, customer satisfaction is increased and profitable growth is strived for.

The agile supply chain is currently the most popular supply chain strategy. Especially in ever faster changing markets it is essential that the supply chain can react agile to the different market requirements in order to maintain its competitiveness.

The agile supply chain has three key success factors:   

• Market intelligence
• Adaptability
• Implementation strength

The company’s market intelligence plays a decisive role in this. Companies that are close to the market thanks to outstretched feelers adapt and react faster than others. Agility also requires a high degree of adaptability.

The following questions can help to assess this: 

• How flexible are the production and the individual machines?
• How adaptable are the suppliers?
• Are employees cross-qualified so that they can work in different areas?

The aim of this adaptability is to be able to react quickly to plannable and unplannable fluctuations. Agile Best Practice companies also demonstrate – thanks to fast time-to-market processes and short lead times – a high implementation strength. Stringent project management, a process-oriented organization, lean processes and continuous improvement are the essential fields of action on the way to agility.

Our approach:  

In joint target workshops, we define with you the corresponding market and customer requirements for each product group and derive further framework conditions and targets from the corporate strategy. The different product groups are then clustered into homogeneous segments based on their requirement profiles.

Suitable supply chain reference models are assigned to these segments, which define the essential parameters of the supply chain. Based on the reference models, we then develop your specific supply chain strategy and the concept for its implementation.

As a final step, we work with you to define the right supply chain organization to match the developed supply chain strategies, enabling your team to implement and sustainably develop the strategies.

Range of services for your organisation:  

• Increased customer satisfaction through a tailor-made supply chain strategy
• Increasing competitiveness
• Agile & powerful supply chain organization
• Optimization of operational key figures such as quality, delivery reliability, ability to deliver, costs and inventories

Do you face similar problems or questions in your company? Our experts will be happy to support you in the area of supply chain segmentation.