5 Limitations Of Supply Chain Management System
In the contemporary industrial world, supply chain management is an exigent field to boost the efficacy of business entities to stand out from their competitors. Supply chain management is a neglected yet prominent field like marketing, production, and finance which a majority of companies fail to give out-and-out focus. From the raw material to the end product that reaches a customer, different stages are involved in product manufacturing. The management of the systematic flow of goods in the whole process of manufacturing is referred to as supply chain management. Supply chain management helps an organization immensely in identifying problems easily in each stage of manufacturing. It accelerates cost-effective business processes while also focusing on enhanced customer delight experiences. Though supply chain management has a strong aura of positivity, there are a few bottlenecks of most of the supply chain management systems.
1. Large Investment
Superlative services or products can only be enjoyed if you are willing to burn a hole in your pocket. Similarly, in order to enjoy the outputs of a well-managed supply chain system, a business entity should show a green signal on investing a good sum of money. Not alone the money, but time and other resources as well. As the implementation is expensive and unaffordable, many organizations, mostly small and medium entities back out from the dream of a smooth running supply chain management system in their firm.
2. Complication
Resistance to any changes is a human instinct. When it comes to a change in professional space, employees don’t show hesitation in resisting as they might be insecure about the outcomes of new changes. The same happens while implementation of supply chain management system in a company, which might be a novel concept to the majority of the employees. Hence it might not be wholeheartedly welcomed in the organization, resulting in the increased failure rate of this management. Also, supply chain management is not a process that demands employees of an organization to stay on an island while working without being connected to any other departments. It includes correlation with various departments within an organization which will easily pave the way to numerous complexities.
3. Co-ordination issues among departments
The success of supply chain management is always influenced by the masterful coordination among different departments of organizations. If the departments are at odds, undoubtedly, the supply chain management system implemented won’t be fruitful in driving the growth of the organization. While even employees from the same department have differing opinions and sometimes find it hard to unite for a better end result, applaudable coordination between departments is challenging, thus it becomes a turndown for the supply chain management.
4. Requirement of Trained Expert Staff
Supply chain management is a daydream if the expert professionals trained specifically in this field aren’t hired in the organization. Another alternative is providing personalized training to existing employees before the implementation of this management. In both cases, the company should incur a heavy expense which often dims the benefits of the system, if established. Many small and medium-scale business entities dare not to even think of a supply chain management system because of this.
5. Lack of Accountability
One of the major drawbacks of supply chain management is that there is no specific employees to be accountable or reliable as the process is all about the exchange of information among various departments. Even if a mistake happened in between the process, it is the result of a team’s activity, not an individual’s thus indirectly exempting everyone from the direct responsibility. This results in confusion and havoc to further activities.
A commendable strategy and vision after thorough research are necessary before implementing supply chain management in an organization. A proper study of the organizational culture and that of each department with experts will help win over the cons of supply chain management that exists currently.
Author: OZE