Growing Supply Chain Advantage in 2021

Supply Chain Competitive Advantage

In order to win, a company needs to get the end consumer what they need, when they want it, faster than the competition. This happens when the company has a strong competitive advantage.

Supply chain competitive advantage continues to be a popular buzz term amongst transportation and logistics professionals.

Years ago, Amazon found their competitive footing when they promised select products would ship for free and arrive at the customer’s door within 2 days.

Fast forward and Amazon now own the e-tailer space as the largest ecommerce site in the world.

Amazon used its supply chain as a strategic lever to outperform competitors - especially in the last mile.

Another supply chain success story is Walmart, now the largest publicly owned retail company in the world.

Their supply chain competitive advantage began when they eliminated the middleman and began working directly with manufacturers and suppliers.

Suppliers became responsible for managing their own inventory in the Walmart warehouses, and they happily obliged, and these strategies freed up Walmart staff to focus on other transportation projects and generated massive savings and passed on to the end customer.

Both Amazon and Walmart are unique in their own way, what remains constant is that the supply chain is fully optimized and has the ability to deliver goods faster- and cheaper- than the competition.

Today, a company’s supply chain can account for the lion’s share of its total spend. Profitability rests heavily on how the supply chain is managed and performs.

It impacts every department across the company because it influences the end customer, the main source of revenue. Gaining an advantage has become difficult because the supply chain has shifted from a tactical business effort to a strategic one.

Download this white paper and learn how supply chain strategy, execution, and risk have become standing agenda items in most board rooms across the country.