Across this global publisher, we realised benefit from the millions upon millions of data points that were going unused.
Challenge:
We worked within a globally distributed supply chain, where every product in every territory required dozens of individuals and multiple suppliers to collaborate to handle the bill of materials. This created countless reports and an overwhelming amount of data, presenting an opportunity to take an analytics-led approach to supply chain management.
Solution:
A small team was deployed to source and manage all from all suppliers for a normalisation and standardisation process. Through regular reviews of volume, spend and activity across different categories we were able to identify upward & downward trends in consumption. Through active intervention in the planning process and missed opportunity reporting multiple initiatives were implemented such as switching production to alternative suppliers, consolidating orders, and challenging demand.
Result:
- One source of the truth, and reduction in duplication and mistakes
- Quick decision making for local, regional and global sourcing / collaboration
- Standardisation of product to remove high customisation charges
- Cost cutting through ensuring the use of contract pricing
- Confidence that custom products had a genuine ROI