Are you running a medium to large organisation that relies on supply chain management to service your customers? If so, you probably have a number of functional departments, some of which are made up of logistics practitioners and some which perform the other vital functions of your enterprise.
Does Your Company Field These Non-supply-chain Teams?
Perhaps you have some, if not all of the following components in your business:
- An IT department or team
- A finance team looking after accounts payable, accounts receivable, and budgets
- A procurement team
- Facilities management specialists
- Human resources team
- An engineering or maintenance department
These teams are all critical to your business operation, but none of them are directly responsible for moving goods through your supply chain to your end customers. That’s the job of your DC managers, warehouse personnel and transportation workforce—your logistics practitioners.
If I suggest therefore, that you should seriously consider providing some supply chain training to the people in these supporting teams, it’s understandable that you might challenge the necessity. However, that’s exactly what I am suggesting and here’s why:
The more these functions understand about your supply chain and how they support it, the more effectively they can play their part in improving its performance.
Understanding is Worth More than Information
Finance, IT, procurement, facilities, HR and maintenance managers will all be better equipped to support and improve your supply chain if they understand precisely how it functions and therefore, how their roles impact its cost, efficiency and effectiveness.
For example, while your finance team doubtlessly talks with your logistics practitioners when constructing warehousing and transportation budgets, there is a big difference between acting on information and actually understanding what it means. Basic supply chain training can make this difference.
Supply Chain Training: An investment, not an Expense
If it seems on the face of it, that providing supply chain training to non-supply chain professionals is an unnecessary expense, I’m not suggesting you enroll them on degree programs. There are some very good basic courses available, conducted by Supply Chain Leaders Academies and run either in the classroom, online or using a combination of the two modes.
These courses don’t need to be expensive and can yield a healthy ROI once all your teams can relate to supply chain practicalities and therefore, are able to collaborate more effectively with your logistics practitioners. The wider the understanding of your supply chain across your entire organisation, the better positioned it is for long-term, sustained success.
An Upcoming Free Supply Chain Webinar
If you want to learn more about ‘fast track’ Supply Chain education programs, check out this free webinar that we have coming up shortly.
Boosting Team Performance through improved ‘Fast Track’ Supply Chain Education.
