Congratulations on your success! Your business has grown phenomenally, and it seems to be firing on all cylinders. Customers are happy, staff members are energized, and the bottom line is growing. In those rare quiet moments, however, when you have a chance reflect on your business, are you confident that you’re truly maximizing your success? One area that can get overlooked in all the excitement is your procurement and supply chain which needs to keep pace with your company’s growth. Whether you’re a manufacturer with a successful product line, a restaurant chain with a hot concept or a retailer that’s making an impact with a growing number of locations, your procurement and supply chain needs to grow with you both in scope and level of sophistication.
Let’s take an up-and-coming restaurant chain as an example where the owners are pleased that what was once a handful of restaurants has grown dramatically into a 30- or 40-unit chain and there is strong interest in opening more locations. Through this growth period, many internal systems have probably been added or expanded to keep pace with the business but sometimes the procurement and supply chain can lag behind as you continue to do what you’ve always done but you’re just adding another zero onto the end of your volume requirements.
It’s probably a good time to take a closer look at your procurement and supply chain processes. Are you capitalizing on your growth by shopping your input requirements around to ensure you are getting the best quality, service and price, and ensuring vendor rebates are being maximized as you exceed higher volume thresholds? Are your distribution costs coming down as your growing volume commands better rates from your third-party distribution resources? Are you adding new levels of sophistication to your procurement by looking at things such as commodity-based inputs and strategic sourcing?
Many rapidly growing organizations may not have the time or internal skill set to take on these daunting tasks. That’s where an outside resource may be an ideal fit for your organization to step into a short-term interim role or with a project-based mandate to take your procurement and supply chain to the next level.
You’ve worked hard to develop a hot product or concept and you should see full the benefit of that growth in improved cost structures and profitability. To arrange an initial consultation on maximizing your business success, please visit www.osborne-group.com or contact me directly at pkeating@localhost or at 416-436-5020.
