Blogs from Maine Pointe

Unlocking Value in Your Supply Chain

Written by Maine Pointe | Apr 19, 2017 4:00:00 AM

Let's begin with a pop quiz...how many leading businesses can you think of that are as dominant today as they were 20 years ago? Of course, there are some, but these are challenging times for even the biggest and best-managed organizations. Rapid economic and technological changes mean an approach that worked pretty well for you yesterday might not be working quite so well today and could be catastrophic by tomorrow. 

As many executives are aware, recognizing that there is a problem and figuring out how to solve it can be the difference between a thriving organization and one that is about to close its doors.

Executives across a broad spectrum of industries share common concerns. Perhaps some of these sound familiar?

“Our inefficient processes are having a negative impact on profit. Our inventory is increasing disproportionately to sales and excess inventory is reaching unmanageable levels.“

“Our cycle times are increasing and schedules are stretching so it's difficult to be fast-to-market.“

“Our operating and marketing costs are increasing and there are intense competitive pressures in our market.“

Breathing new life into the supply chain
There's no doubt that these are some pretty significant challenges and big challenges need big solutions. With internal functional silos hindering many companies' ability to drive improvements, we encourage executives to take a holistic approach across procurement, logistics and operations to transform the organization into a sustainable, cross-functional and synchronized supply chain. We call this Total Value Optimization™ (TVO). In many cases, this is the critical breath of new life which organizations need in order to realize their true capacity for agility and differentiation in today's market.

Cultural change is the key to driving strategic growth
Leader and Organization Improvement (LOI) is a great place to start to build the way forward. This is how we identify synergies across departments and identify gaps in the organization that could silently be affecting the achievement of your EBITDA goals. Interviewing and fact finding to establish the “as is“ organizational layout provide the basis needed to design and drive sustainable change in cross-functional teams for the future.

Stop buying and start sourcing
Changing the thinking and process behind how you bring products to the marketplace is a critical step in creating a competitive weapon in cost management. To achieve this you need to combine deep subject matter expertise and experience with a best practice strategic sourcing process to analyze, develop and execute strategy. This includes rationalization of the supply base to leverage economies of scale, strengthen and build strategic supplier relationship, and drive sustainable savings to the bottom line.

Get it better, faster, cheaper with logistics
Driving efficiency and cost management reveals a natural efficiency opportunity in sourcing of transportation logistics. Moving products from point A to point B is a great place to drive a strong value chain. From air and ocean to freight trucking and small parcel, it is possible to create leverage and define service level agreements with key suppliers to support the company's growth strategy and market competitiveness.

A holistic view of operations
How much do you sell? How much inventory do you need? How does seasonal planning impact your business? What is the lifecycle of your products? Having a holistic view of operations completes the third pillar of the TVO Pyramid™.

Now is the time to unlock value in your supply chain
Whether you are in finished goods or in product manufacturing, can you afford not to look at driving the big synergy savings and synchronization opportunities that lie within your procurement, logistics and operations functions?

About Us

Maine Pointe is a global implementation-focused consulting firm trusted by many chief executives and private equity firms to drive compelling economic returns for their companies. We achieve this by delivering accelerated, sustainable improvements in both EBITDA and cash across their supply chain and operations. Our hands-on implementation experts work with executives and their teams to rapidly break through functional silos and transform the buy-make-move-fulfill supply chain to deliver the greatest value to customers and investors at the lowest cost to business. We call this Total Value Optimization (TVO)™.

Maine Pointe's engagements are results-driven and deliver between 3.5:1-12:1 ROI. We are so confident in our work and our processes that we provide a unique 100% guarantee of engagement fees based on annualized savings. www.mainepointe.com