Key Factors to Consider When Choosing a Supply Chain Consultancy in the UK

Supply chain management consultants may help boost your company’s efficiency in managing and ensuring a reliable supply chain to avoid risks that can cost you a lot of time and money. Some of the best supply chain consultants are in the UK, but you need to be careful and look up only the reputable ones that have the experience in helping the type of business you run. Choosing a supply chain consultancy in the UK should be easy when you know the following factors to consider:

• Customised business intelligence and research solutions – Experienced supply chain consultants are flexible and can provide bespoke solutions to any organisation worldwide. They have experience working with the public sector, leading corporations, and small and medium enterprises alike. Customised solutions can help you make smarter and fact-based decisions for your business to unlock hidden potential and reduce risk. The flexibility of a supply chain consultant can help you understand your workflow and come up with solutions that can control your expenses in the long run.

• Personal attention to each client – Choose a supply chain consultancy service in the UK that offers a boutique approach where a member of a senior team will be assigned and work closely with you throughout the entire duration of your contract. That way, you can ensure a more personal approach to solving issues in your supply chain.

• Flexible engagement models – Whether you need a supply chain consultant on-demand or for only one project, or you need one to work with you in the long run, the consultancy service should be designed to suit your changing and growing business needs.
  
  
• The ability to boost your revenue and minimise your costs – Verify that the supply chain consultancy service can add skills and efficiency to your business to help boost your potential for higher returns while enabling you to save money in the long run.

Common Mistakes You Might Experience When Choosing a Procurement Consulting Firm for Your Company

Having the right procurement solution should help boost your profit and ensure efficient supply chain management. To achieve that, you need to pick a reliable procurement consulting firm that understands the needs of your company. However, with the great number of procurement consultants in the world, it can be difficult to narrow down your choice to only the best firm. Knowing these common mistakes in choosing a procurement consulting firm should help you avoid them and ensure a better way to choose the right consultant for your company:

• Hiring an inexperienced procurement consulting firm – Some firms are fairly new to the industry and have yet to gain the experience they need to become more capable of understanding that your company is unique from others. Due to lack of experience, these firms end up recommending ineffective or mediocre solutions that could cost your business. Hence, be sure to pick a procurement consulting firm with highly experienced and a professional team that has several years of combined experience working with leading consulting and research companies.

• Choosing a non-certified firm – Verify that you are picking an ISO 9001:2008 certified procurement consulting firm. That way, you can be sure that they follow global industry standards in providing the right solutions using proven project management techniques and contemporary research methods for your supply chain.

• Picking a one-size-fits-all firm – Seasoned procurement consultants understand that your company’s needs are different from another business, so they make sure to provide customized research that is unbiased and high-quality. By customizing their research and services to your needs, they can provide solutions that add skills to your company and make your processes more efficient, resulting in increased cost savings and higher profit margins.

• Not verifying the reputation of the firm – Read client testimonials about the procurement consulting firm before hiring it. That way, you can learn more about them from previous clients and determine if they can indeed help your company find solutions for its procurement issues.

The Positive Aspects of Hiring Supply Chain Risk Management Providers

Every organization relies on a set of critical suppliers, and if any of these suppliers are at a financial, market related or sustainability related risk, it can put the entire supply chain at risk. Most of the times, risks come from tier two, and tier three suppliers. Hence, it is important for organizations to maintain visibility into all aspects of their supply chain to determine key risk and performance indicators that must be monitored to prevent unwanted surprises. Hiring supply chain risk management providers can make it easier for small and medium-sized procurement organizations to have a systematic approach in addressing all the possible risks in the supply chain. Here are some of the positive aspects of hiring reputable and experienced supply chain risk management specialists:

• Identify and map interdependencies in the extended supply chain – Organizations can leave the repetitive tasks such as data collection to supply chain risk management providers. These experts can collect data on critical suppliers on the organization's n-tier supply chains and analyze the information to find interdependencies in those areas. Doing so enhances your visibility into your supply chain.

• Monitor risk indicators and spot early warning signs – Supply chain risk management specialists use a unique framework in category intelligence to oversee the risk indicators associated with every procurement category. Likewise, they will keep you updated through news alerts, reports, and newsletters.

• Map potential risks – Research will be conducted on countries and markets that have a considerable impact on each procurement category's extended supply chain. This way, the supply chain risk management provider can identify and monitor every risk indicator.

• All possible risks are considered – Seasoned supply chain risk management providers do not merely focus on market-related risks like the entry of new players, technological disruptions, trends in supply and demand, consolidation, and regulatory risks. They take a look at macroeconomic factors, sustainability risks, operational risks, and geopolitical risks, too. That way, you gain full visibility and be able to oversee all activities in your supply chain.