Over 90% of customer complaints in Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market are related to late deliveries.

So, if you’re a business owner dealing with consumer goods, ask yourself these two questions: Are your customers getting what they want from you when they want it? And Are you spending your business’ funds efficiently to make that happen?

If the answer is yes, congratulations. You likely have a well-optimised supply chain.

But it’s rare for any growing business to be this way. It’s a sad fact that plenty of businesses have several issues related to their supply and delivery processes. They need to improve or even completely overhaul the way their supply chains function, especially companies that already spend too much but still can’t deliver their customers’ orders on time.

Fortunately, with proper supply chain management and optimisation, enterprises that face the problems mentioned above can turn their business around.

What is Supply Chain Management?

Supply chain management is the active management of the flow of goods and services, from raw materials to the finished product at the hands of a customer. Consistent chain operations are essential to ensure customer satisfaction and achieve a competitive edge.

Businesses must pay attention to supply chain management because the goods that reach a customer are the product of different organisations’ cumulative effort, from manufacturers to the last mile delivery company. These establishments tend to only focus on what happens within their walls, however, instead of working to improve inter-hub cooperation and efficiency, resulting in fragmented supply chains.

Each leg of the delivery process is a part of a supply “chain” for a reason— they are all linked through the flow of physical products and information.

When the management of the supply chain is optimised, your business reaps the following benefits:

• Better collaboration
• Improved quality control
• Higher efficiency
• Reduced operational costs
• Faster and smoother shipping

With these benefits in mind, optimising the supply chain needs to be one of the top priorities of any business.

Ways to Optimise Your Supply Chain

1. Maintain a healthy relationship with suppliers

Unless you get raw materials directly from the source, your suppliers are going to have their own suppliers. Your business’ materials will have gone through a whole ecosystem before you even get to create the product you offer to the market. Thus, nurturing your relationship with not just your suppliers but their own as well can improve your supply chain’s effectiveness.

When you cultivate a positive relationship with suppliers, communication flows much easier, so there’s less room for delay-causing misunderstandings and errors.

2. Identify current and potential causes of delay

Your products pass through several points in the supply chain before reaching consumers. So, if there are delays, the cause is likely from somewhere in the chain, and you need to identify where it is quickly.

Some of the most common causes of delays along the supply chain are found in:

• Manufacturing
• Warehousing
• Shipping

Once you’ve identified the area or areas where the delay happens, you will be able to find a more effective solution or come up with alternatives to improve the whole process.

3. Use technology to streamline processes

Speaking of delays, one of the main reasons they arise within the supply chain is the manual nature of processes. With rapid technological advancements, automation should be normalised at different points along the supply chain. This is not the case on the ground.

Plenty of processes along the supply chain still rely on human capital. But if your aim is to expand your business, automation in the supply chain is imperative. Automation brings with it major benefits, from higher precision to improved efficiency.

Use your discovery of the delay-causing links on the supply chain and try to use automation or some form of technology to further streamline your business processes.

4. Outsource other tasks

Organisations that take on too many things at once tend to drop the ball in some areas, leading to worse outcomes. This is why recognising the areas your team excels at and outsourcing the rest of the tasks is a vital part of optimising your supply chain.

Thus, a third-party provider, such as a supply chain delivery company, can do a better job in the long run than an in-house team juggling too many tasks at once.

When you outsource services you need for your supply chain, not only are you letting professionals handle things like logistics, you are also allowing your organisation to focus on its core competencies and other important tasks that help grow your business.

Outsource to Optimise

Supply chain management and optimisation are never-ending processes. Constant innovation means there’s always something you can improve along the supply chain. But with outsourcing, the only thing you need to do is choose the right company to outsource services from.

Singapore Trust Services can be your business’ outsourced supply chain delivery partner. With highly reliable delivery personnel and integrated logistics services, including contract delivery and cold chain delivery services within Singapore, you can optimise your supply chain processes, reach your audience and save on costs at the same time.

Get a free quote for your supply chain delivery with Singapore Trust Services.