Have You Spotted the Silos in Your Supply Chain?
Collaboration within the retail supply chain must begin inside the organization, according to Infosys’ expert. He makes a business case for internal collaboration in an article published in Supplychainbrain.com.
Infosys believes that retailers must get different departments to work together for sharing data and forecasts. The answer to eliminating siloed behavior in the retail industry lies in abolishing the functional walls that exist between internal departments.
The article cites a success story where Infosys discovered multiple LTL (Less-than-truckload) shipments originating from vendors five miles apart that were shipped on the same day to the same retailer’s distribution center. According to Infosys’ expert, internal collaboration can uncover shipments scheduled from the same region over several days – a redundancy that cannot be identified by standard transportation management system software.
Infosys used this technique to make savings of 3%-12% on a customer’s inbound transportation costs. After a three-week review of 21,000 purchase orders, Infosys ensured annual cost savings of US$ 1 million on expenditure of US$ 35 million.
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