Keeping Ahead of Supply Chain Risk and Uncertainty
Risk—particularly supply chain risk—has become ubiquitous as globalization causes supply chains to lengthen. Accenture and Oracle combine forces to provide a point of view that will help companies understand the nature of supply chain risk—and what they can do to mitigate it.
Content: Article | Sources: Accenture, Oracle | Subjects: Operations, Risk Management
Why Most Balanced Scorecards are Subverted
Business and IT managers have failed to get at the root cause of Balanced Scorecard ineffectiveness. Getting the most from corporate data will continue to be elusive until business management strategy and data management architecture are aligned.
Content: Article | Authors: B. Spencer, J. Dowling, R. Lynch | Source: TechnologyEvaluation.com | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Management, Operations
High Performance through Procurement: The role of technology
Procurement mastery—significantly outpacing competitors in areas such as sourcing, category management and supplier relationship management—can be immensely profitable and yet a surprising number of companies never implement a procurement-optimization effort. Accenture can help companies understand the nature of procurement mastery—how and why to achieve it, and how it contributes to high performance.
Content: Article | Authors: Kevin Potts, Rob Woodstock | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations
Sourcing: Finding the Optimal Mix of Suppliers
Mastering Global Operations to Enable High Performance
Companies compete in a multi-polar world—an environment characterized by a new and more complex phase of increased economic interdependence across multiple centers of economic power and activities. Accenture research into global operations reveals that succeeding in this environment demands a new way of thinking about global operations. In particular, it points to five guiding principles that can position companies for high performance on this new … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Christophe Cases, Greg Cudahy, Narendra Mulani | Source: Accenture | Subjects: International, Operations, Risk Management
Start with Sourcing
Procurement lies at the heart of a successful green strategy.
Content: Article | Authors: Martha Turner, Pat Houston | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Operations, Social Responsibility (ESG)
High-Performance Talent Management in an Outsourcing Environment
The High Performance Supply Chain Study: Service Management Mastery
As products become commoditized and customers more demanding, service management is an increasingly important enabler of high performance. Accenture leverages its High Performance Business research and extensive client experience to identify the challenges to the mastery of service management, and outlines the common practices of the masters in this section of the supply chain.
Content: Article | Source: Accenture | Subject: Operations
Talent Management and High Performance: Driving Business Value from HR and HR Outsourcing
Everyone’s talking about “talent management” today as a way to boost the performance of the human resources (HR) organization. But what are the elements of a talent management strategy, leveraging advanced HR outsourcing solutions, that can actually drive high performance for an entire company?
This article offers an innovative and practical approach to talent management—planning and executing an integrated set of management processes that generate greater … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Craig Mindrum, Ph.D., Sian Beacham | Sources: Accenture, HRO Today | Subjects: Human Resources, Outsourcing / BPO
Optimize Working-Capital Levels
Navigating the Risks and Challenges of Offshoring
For American companies, sending work overseas has been a hit or miss proposition. The winners cite the cost savings and expertise garnered abroad. However, for the losers, offshore projects gone awry can result in lost intellectual property and/or disgruntled customers. With the rate of offshoring on the rise, supply chain experts at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and other Atlanta-area outsourcing experts say for companies … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Emory | Subject: Outsourcing / BPO
The Purchasing Chessboard
A Possible Remedy for Non-responsive Supply Chains
Increasing globalization is leaving manufacturers no choice but to change the way they conduct their business, starting with reorganizing their supply chain processes. More and more, these organizations are opting to streamline their in-house operations by steering their supply chains toward horizontal or virtual integration. But many manufacturers have found that the software technologies designed for the vertical supply chains of yesterday cannot support this … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Author: P.J. Jakovljevic | Source: TechnologyEvaluation.com | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Operations
The Purchasing Chessboard: Buying in a Seller’s Market
Consolidating supplier markets, rising energy prices and the growing demand for raw materials in emerging markets have fundamentally changed the purchasing framework. Suppliers are more powerful than ever, which means buyers must adjust quickly to a new playing field.
A.T. Kearney developed The Purchasing Chessboard — a compilation of insights and experience from thousands of purchasing projects performed worldwide—to help procurement professionals master the tools of … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Best Practices, Finance, Management, Operations
The Triple-A Supply Chain
The holy grails of supply chain management are high speed and low cost — or are they? Though necessary, they aren’t sufficient to give companies a sustainable competitive advantage over rivals. Here’s what else your company needs.
Content: Article | Author: Hau L. Lee | Sources: BNET, Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations
Managing Transportation
Across industries, companies are dealing with ever-increasing transportation costs due to rising energy costs, complex supply chains, and a competitive marketplace where customers are becoming more demanding and therefore shipments are becoming more fragmented. With costs that approach 5 percent of total sales and 15 percent of the cost of goods sold, reducing transportation costs can be tantamount to a company’s success — if not … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subject: Operations
Creating the Optimal Supply Chain
Published jointly by BCG’s Operations practice and The Wharton School, the report is the first in a four-part series exploring various operations topics. It features thinking from many BCG experts as it explores several different aspects of this important topic for our clients. It includes articles about developing the optimal supply chain, coordination and collaboration, flexibility and enterprise systems.
Content: Article | Sources: Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Operations
A.T. Kearney House of Purchasing and Supply
Beyond the Quality Revolution: Linking Quality to Corporate Strategy
Business cares so much about quality because quality — however defined — can be clearly linked to some measures of economic value and business success. Given the relationship between quality — once achieved — and value, corporations have good reasons for remaining committed to the quality vision. But many firms are having a hard time applying quality principles throughout their operations.
Many of the TQM projects … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Author: Tamara J. Erickson | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Management, Operations, Strategy
Getting Control of Your Inventory
To a CFO, inventory is often a line item on the balance sheet that measures inventory turns against the income statement (cost of goods sold). This COGS analysis provides an overall view of how much inventory is held across the company’s supply chain. What it doesn’t provide, however, are the reasons why the inventory is there in the first place or whether the return on … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Kumar Venkataraman, Mirko Martich, Shalin Shah, Sumit Chandra | Source: Kearney | Subject: Operations | Industry: Retail