With ever increasing demands on the supply chain, quality remains a fundamental cornerstone in determining value, supply chain performance, and safety.
It is the absolute lifeblood of continuous improvement – constantly reviewing performance gives you the opportunity to change things for the better. It is vitally important that companies understand where they currently stand against a benchmark or standard and have a plan to get better.
Colin Hart, SCS Competitiveness Director explains more:
We saw athletes at the top of their game at the recent 2024 Olympics. Reaching that standard will have taken tremendous resilience and continuous effort to keep improving. In a similar way, businesses need to focus and drive incremental improvements to perform at their best and win in a competitive landscape.
We can all identify a standard we wish to achieve whether that be a weight loss goal in our personal life or obtaining a formal business accreditation such as AS9100. But, without firstly benchmarking where you are and then having a structured time-based plan we are unlikely to achieve it. This is where structured continuous improvement programmes such as SC21 come in.
Knowing how much you have improved is interesting, knowing how far ahead of the competition you are, in the eyes of your customer, is essential.
The interesting thing about competitiveness is that it means slightly different things to different people. It is a bit like value – what is value to one person may not always be exactly the same to the next person. It’s the same with a supply chain – what capability is deemed higher value to one customer may be different to another. However, quality always remains an essential element.
The demands and expectations on the supply chain are growing and increasingly multi-faceted and diverse. What was deemed “world class” just three years ago is merely average today. The expectations that a product or service will work first time, every time have also grown – whether that be a Wi-Fi network, or a mobile phone. You only have to look at reviews on social media for proof of this.
Feedback is vitally important and shouldn’t make your heart sink. It should be welcomed as an opportunity to make improvements when shortcomings are highlighted. Many successful businesses have recognised that link. They take their input from their number of returns, customer feedback, or employee surveys and they feed it into their business improvement plan.
What looks competitive to one customer can be different for the next. This is increasingly more complex with the future challenges of social value, sustainability and net zero targets. Having that input and collaboration with the customer to understand why they come to you is really important. The question we need to ask is, where do I need to focus my improvement efforts to add value and retain business, and then hopefully you can go a little further to offer that extra value. You have to know where you are, and benchmark that.
Expectations are also increasing every day in terms of, not only how companies perform, but also how they behave.
Ethical procurement is increasingly important – that understanding of not only where your supplies come from, but also from where your suppliers source them and to set expectations for them to operate in ethical conditions, to demonstrate sustainability, and so forth. The best businesses have the right behaviours, not just in terms of their staff, but also their supply chain.
Five top tips for an organisation to gain a competitive advantage
- Benchmark where you are and understand where your position is in the market, using an evidence-based toolset.
- Listen and research what is going on around you before you decide what to do. Listen to as many people as you can but ultimately you have to decide what is best for your business, department or for your personal development.
- Collaboration is key, both on a micro level and a macro level. Spend time looking at other departments and invite them to give feedback on yours.
- Don’t just focus on the big things. They can make a huge impact but often it is the smaller incremental changes that matter.
- Don’t let achieving perfection immediately stand in the way of progress – have a plan and make an improvement list. If you know what you want to do, plan out what you have to do to get to what you want to achieve. Doing something is almost always better than doing nothing!
