The Progress and Promise of Real Collaboration

SupplyChainBrain - Companies have made great strides in fostering collaboration with their trading partners, says Joseph Andraski, president and chief executive officer of Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Solutions (VICS). But there’s still work to be done, especially with regard to tearing down internal and external silos.CEOs today get measured on a number of metrics, including working capital, sales, and profit and loss. The deployment of CPFR has led to gains in all of those areas, Andraski claims.

Challenges remain. Companies still aren’t fully sharing critical supply and demand data, he says. Trust remains an issue within many organizations, especially those that aren’t accustomed to satisfying both internal and external customers. In addition, the growing popularity of outsourcing as a strategic tool has created the need to include third-party service providers in the collaborative effort.

Many companies remain stuck in a silo mentality, Andraski says. What’s needed is a rethinking of the way business is done, both inside and outside company walls, including a candid assessment of each partner’s strengths and weaknesses. Such an effort, he says, “is absolutely essential to a supply chain program.”