07 February 2012

Viewpoint : Guest Columnists

Paper tigers in the supply chain

Published:: 01 September 2008
Article Type:: Viewpoint
Byline:: Rikke Helms

Supply chain mobility means removing the paper chain

While industries such as manufacturing, energy and finance have been the earliest adopters of mobile technology, in their efforts to try and glean additional efficiencies from field service forces, deployment issues and technological limitations have typically hampered uptake across other sectors. However, times are changing, and a raft of new customisable mobile applications are now making an impact within a wide variety of businesses, and at numerous different stages of the supply chain, in particular.

Perhaps the key to this is the fact that increased industry competition and general awareness have made customers more adept than ever before at migrating their business to the supplier that best meets their demands - whether it be the lowest price or highest standard of service. The onus is now squarely on businesses to examine their supply chains and identify any processes that could be streamlined to reduce costs and overall timeframes, ultimately with a view to passing on these benefits to the customer.

Furthermore, these workers in many cases form the main customer-facing part of an organisation, and it's crucial that such customer contact experiences are made as satisfying as possible. Having the right staff is one key factor; but providing these employees with the best possible tools in which to do their jobs is just as vital.

Through the use of mobile applications, delivered to a wide variety of handheld devices ranging from mobile phones to PDAs and BlackBerries, field workers are now able to perform processes such as invoicing, ordering stock and sending or receiving job updates and cancellations electronically, as opposed to the manual methods previously adopted.

It's about following the paper chain - wherever paperwork is currently required, a mobile application can theoretically be deployed in its place. Considering the amount of supply chain tasks that, for the majority of organisations, will currently involve at least some time-consuming paperwork, such as sourcing goods, deliveries or even compliance with regulatory measures, this represents potentially massive time and cost savings. It also means greater efficiency from a customer perspective, whether through speedier product dispatching, more responsive customer service (thanks to improved internal information flow) or simply lower costs in general.

One of the major drawbacks to mobility rollouts used to be the widespread upheaval and disruption to workers for the duration of the project. Fortunately, the industry has learnt from its previous failings and the latest breed of mobile applications are specifically designed with ease-of-deployment in mind, in some cases reducing initial rollout time from weeks or months to just a couple of hours.

Another drawback to mobility adoption has traditionally been the significant upfront investment required. However, one of the biggest growth areas is now in applications delivered as a service. From a payment perspective, this allows organisations to pay on a per user per month basis, meaning that if something isn't working, it can very quickly be changed or modified - a much more palatable model for most companies.

Although these factors have certainly been conducive to recent increases in supply chain mobility rollouts, the biggest case for mobility is that as customer choice continues to expand, all businesses will eventually recognise that improving internal processes, customer service and overall agility are not just competitively advantageous -they're a competitive necessity.

Rikke Helms is managing director of EMEA, Dexterra.

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