Streamlining New Product Introduction and Product Lifecycle Management to Align and Optimize the End-to-End Supply Chain

Getting the right product/solution/service to market at the right time, to the right customers, the way they want it delivered, has become the new commercial battlefield for competitive advantage. A meter from the finish line you visualize victory and, certain of a win, push yourself and your team hard. And why not? You’ve prepared for every step in the path to success within your control. However, despite your best efforts, you fall short of success. The loss feels bad, but worse still, you’ve been here before.

Many supply chain leaders live in this paradigm every day, and it intensifies during the quarter-end cycle. Supply chains are complex but the C-suite has opportunities to overcome these complexities. One solution resides in how organizations proactively and aggressively align new product introduction (NPI), product lifecycle management (PLM), sales and operations planning (S&OP), and data analytics to be part of the supply chain ecosystem. If they do, supply chain can influence downstream victories –cost, delivery, quality and time-to-market.

To be of maximum value, NPI and PLM must be optimized and interconnected to the supply chain to achieve highly effective and efficient procurement, operations and logistics practices. This requires cross-functional leadership and stakeholder alignment. It isn’t easy, but success is well within the C-suite’s grasp.