Managing a diverse and agile supplier network is now a top priority in the auto industry and essential to remain competitive. Whether mitigating everyday disruptions, shifting to produce electric vehicles or dealing with the semiconductor shortage, the automotive supply chains, live and die by their supplier network. Thus, the need for innovation in automotive business networks is crucial to remove friction, enable visibility and build resiliency for whatever obstacle comes next.
How can you ensure your organization is agile and resilient enough to meet the challenges it will inevitably face? To paraphrase Charles Darwin, “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, it’s the one most adaptable to change.” Without a robust network or simplified supplier relationships you can’t adapt quickly enough to trends and changes. You can’t readily tap into new suppliers to capitalize on renewed demand. This is especially true in the automotive industry, where hundreds of suppliers and partners are fundamental to a company’s success.
To ensure continuity during times of change, here are three ways you can increase the resilience of your supply chain and networks:
Automate supplier onboarding: One major reason companies can’t adapt adequately enough is because they can’t find and integrate the right suppliers in a timely manner. Solutions that automate vetting and onboarding can get suppliers online up to 75% faster. Those weeks and months saved, across hundreds of relationships, can be used for other innovative, value-driven work.
Increase flexibility and efficiency of B2B collaboration: To compete in today’s hyper-connected global economy, you need to digitize and automate connectivity as much as technology will permit. Modern business networks, whether on cloud, hybrid-cloud or even on premises, can provide fast, real-time, digital connections and communications required to optimize the value you get out of your supplier base. Clear and quick communication and data exchange are the lifeblood of collaborative supplier relationships.
Modernize technology: Most automakers have a patchwork of supply chain and network technologies that were never designed for today’s dynamic environment. That’s why focusing on modernizing your network offers so much upside, like gaining the scalability and agility to keep pace with changing business and technology needs.
Global uncertainties are resulting in new operational and technological challenges as well as potential opportunities for the automotive sector. Now more than ever, automotive players should be adapting their processes from product design, procurement, production, supply chain, all the way to sales and marketing to create more simplified supplier collaborations. Some organisations will adapt by creating stable, long-term strategic partnerships. Others will diversify and expand, relying on larger numbers of fleeting supply chain engagements. While others will embrace the components of both strategies. In all cases, better visibility, flexibility and communication are critical to success.
sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/01/28/why-the-auto-industry-must-adapt-or-die/
https://www.wardsauto.com/industry-news/adaptation-key-waking-supply-chain-nightmare
https://datainterchange.com/future-of-automotive-supply-chain/
