RESPONSIVENESS TO CUSTOMERS REQUESTS

Responsiveness to customer requests is a key requirement in today’s fast moving world • Market demands shift quickly today. The attractive products of today are tomorrow replaced by another hype or trend, driving the consumers to buy different products, services, or from other sources. • The fact that consumers, having instant access to manifold changes using the internet drives the speed of their decisions, and the speed of ordering. Fast delivery via download, or by fast delivery modes of service providers makes the product quickly available, and matches up with the speed of access and ordering. • This creates a massive effect of getting used to speed as a standard. • At the same time, even “Business-to- Business” customers face a more volatile situation; their sales portfolio changes, their inventory buffers have been reduced through “working capital optimization” initiatives, and they rely even more on accurate demand plans which are very likely to change. Thus their orders to their suppliers change quickly in product, timing, and volumes. • The ability to respond quickly are founded on a wide set of required enablers, techniques, processes, and IT systems. These need to be geared towards flexibility in a short period of time, not just for fast delivery. • But is not about responsiveness alone; there are many ways to make the supply chain more nimble and adaptive, more effective and efficient by applying lean thinking, and to design the access to customer in a more responsive way. • IN-NOVA has developed a toolbox to increase responsiveness, which needs to be configured to every client in a different way to fit to markets, internal processes, and overall supply chain capabilities. This is also where supply chain maturity plays a vital role.