NOKIA
“ This supply chain transformation has been a journey of around eight years ,” Giloth says . “ We were undergoing external shocks to a certain extent . The first challenge was the battle of profitability that was driven by major Chinese competitors , and because of this we needed to cut costs and drive efficiency in the supply chain , and therefore one of the solutions was to create an integrated supply chain .
“ We applied a lot of lean , Six Sigma , Kaizen continuous improvement efforts – the bread and butter of a good supply chain ,” he adds . “ We renovated our organisational setup . We introduced KPIs and that was just the first step .”
The next challenge confronting Nokia was the pressure to be agile and responsive in a volatile market .
“ The need for an agile supply chain became more and more paramount ,” Giloth reflects . “ We invested a lot of time and also money in making our supply chain and demand planning , reacting faster to the market changes while not compromising on the lean setup . Then that created an integrated and demand-driven supply network .”
Customer-focused The third and perhaps most pressing priority ? Customer centricity .
In many organisations , supply chains are seen
88 April 2018