Why SCM consulting is a must for any organization?

Using the eye of external experts does certainly bring a wealth of experience to your company on a temporary basis. Their insights do generally reflect benchmarking activities, best functional business practices, a firm methodology and clear solutions enabling your organization to move forward.

Golden advice prepared for the future in a fast changing world.

However you must be open to welcome challenges and changes!

SCM Consulting is one of those fields where business leaders should focus on.

The mix of securing cost-reductions, optimizing your material flows and streamlining your overall processes is a strong weapon to remain competitive now and for ever.

Hereby some more explicit reasons for using SCM consulting services:

• The support you will get from highly experienced people who already climbed the full learning curve

• The capability to develop your own Supply Chain Management structure from roles and responsibilities via recruitment up till follow-up and coaching sessions

• The training sessions that can be delivered allowing your team members to increase their knowledge level on SCM related topics

• The ability to use the “train the trainer” as cascading process throughout the company

• The possibility to drive specific SCM Consultancy projects based upon proven case studies and in-depth “wisdom” on to be used methodologies

• The advantage of using as strategic report from consultants in order to convince the shareholders on the right way to be followed

• The ease to call upon identified and proven capable low-cost suppliers for manufacturing and/or servicing purposes

• The cultural business flavor and country specifics that good consultants can offer

• The experience on dealing with all kinds of change-management issues

But, make sure to select the right people offering SCM consulting. A power-point presentation only is no guarantee for success!

Best Practices for Supply Chain Solutions

Too often you will see high-level strategies being developed with a rather limited focus on implementation. Supply Chain solutions can only be successful when they support the process going from A to B.


Other then just looking at the specifics of each products and/or service, it is of crucial importance to understand the business context including the impact on the organization.

Pro-actively you also would need to be aware of the internal and external expected reactions as a result of a change-management process you might be driving.


Hereby some “best practices” for securing positive Supply Chain solutions:

• First discuss with top-management on expectations and priorities

• Take your time to absorb the “culture”

• Make sure that the CEO/CFO communicates and emphasizes your presence and importance throughout the company

• Have internal meetings with all key decision makers involved with the scope you will be working on

• Organize “high-level” meetings with key suppliers in order to “feel the temperature” from both ends

• Project all your actions on a timeline with strong focus on innovations (past/now/future)

• Integrate the implementation roadmap into your strategy

• Avoid making “too big promises but “act behind the scene” in phase one

• Take care with too easy extrapolations as local culture (industry and country style) could be completely different

• Challenge and review your strategy in case of too big “mountains to climb”

• Move (gradually) towards the implementation path

• Use specific Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to measure the changes (ex. % of contract compliance, Completion time, Projected Savings, etc.)

Only demonstrating your specific knowledge on a given product and/or service is just not good enough! You would need to be an all-round business person with excellent communication skills and a strong sense of perseverance to succeed in implementing supply chain solutions.

Do you want to hire me?

Logically you might ask yourself why you would need to hire a supply chain consultant.


Probably your first reaction would be to think of your own team’s skills, capacity and capabilities to say “we can do these ourselves”.

However, very often you would be much better of with external people. Bring the real benefits of hiring supply chain consultants in your equation:

• A wealth of gained experiences across various companies, industries and services

• “Best Practices” on Supply Chain Management easily to extrapolate to other areas

• A no-nonsense field knowledge when hiring the right consultants

• Speed of the process going from point A to B

• Lower costs at mid-term, avoiding incremental FTE’s to build up

• Capability to free up time and space within your own organization

• Not being forced to go through a complex recruitment process

• Many others

Furthermore, it is of substantial importance to focus on “Executives and Workers” with the ability to combine “strategic exercises” with “implementation”. Unfortunately a statement too frequently stated by the big consultancy companies!

Receiving academic guidelines supported by extensive power-point presentations will not help you to be successful.

Advantages of using a supply chain consultancy

Being the master of your expenses is probably more crucial now then ever before.


You might be aware of some solutions but are you sure to cover the complete spectrum of cost-reduction methodologies for your business?

The extensive field experience on cost cutting is one of the advantages of using a supply chain consultancy. Who else would be able to explain and support you to tailor-made the best possible actions for your company?

Commonly used ways to eliminate and avoid high costs ramping up are:

• Incumbent negotiations

• Re-sourcing activities

• Outsourcing

• Value Analysis/Value Engineering

• Simultaneous Engineering

• Standardization Exercises

• Reverse Auctions (On-line bidding)

• Purchasing Pools

• Clear Target settings

• Low Cost Country Sourcing

• Cross-functional Process Improvements

• Rebate Systems

• Firm Vendor Contracts

• Demand Management Analysis

• Etc.

Just knowing these is of course not enough! However, bringing and using these in the right context creates a strong value for clients. Understanding the differences between for example the automotive and the pharmaceutical industry is essential!

Some thoughts and guidelines to consider strongly:

• The feasibility to use a certain method depends on the scope, situation and vertical

• Screen the whole supply chain and the timeline from creation over delivery up till follow-up services

• Think out of the blue and challenge your customers by asking “Why? What for?”

• Neglect conservatism of people, road-blocking your idea and approach

• Be aware of the “things to do” for each opportunity and figure out the potential reactions and consequences

• Develop your contingency (plan B)

• Empower your supply base to be supportive

• Assure a strong relationship with the sales & marketing team

• Why would you need a golden pump when a bronze one complies with the specifications?

• Certainly evaluate to use an on-line bidding process for “first ever” evaluations

• Are you the specialist of product X or is this more core competence for your supply base?

• Push your suppliers to provide support on your standardization process

• Use your suppliers as “mirror” for bench-marking activities

It is not the hairdresser but the astronauts landed on the moon! Hope you are convinced that every field has his experts ….. and there are many advantages of using a supply chain consultancy for efficiency and cost savings.