Tips For An Effective Supply Chain Management During Holidays

Many companies make the most of their business in the holiday season. This period starts from Halloween and continues till Christmas. The holiday season is when people should step up their business game by optimizing their supply chain management.

The holiday season means more demand for goods and services. And that ultimately leads to the need for adequate transportation and inventory management. If the customer demand is not met, the sales go down. Stockers need to stock everything from dresses to candies and treats.

With the effects of COVID-19, business people face new challenges as they have cut down staff and are depending on online systems. Therefore, reputed trucking companies like DsonsTransport must foresee any challenge and take measures for an effective supply chain management system.
That’s why we came up with some of the best tips for effective supply chain management during holidays.

The Challenges To Supply Chain During Holidays
Companies become more customer-focused in the holidays. Due to high demand, they have to face some of the challenges, acting as hurdles for the smooth supply chain management. Some of the most common challenges are:

Out of Inventory

Running out of inventory is one of the most common challenges faced. When customers want something, they want it as soon as possible. If you can’t supply them with that, they often go-ahead to another vendor.
Running out of inventory could be caused because of unexpected customers’ demands, high demand, or less stock with the supplier.

Out of Labor

Another challenge that retailers meet is labor capacity. Each of the shopping methods has different steps and requires specified personnel. Therefore, companies need to have better associates to meet different shopping methods’ needs.

Communication Issues

In a state of panic, there can be a lot of miscommunication between the vendors and the partners. Suppliers, business companies, and logistics are all making efforts to keep the customers happy. However, a small miscommunication can halt the overall operation.
Proactive planning can ease the task of communicating the needs of the customers to the suppliers. This will help you have the right products on the shipping trucks at the right time.

Some of the other reasons include driver and truck shortages, and changing customer habits affect the supply chain management process.

How To Overcome These Challenges?

Having the right supply chain management company as a partner can help you overcome these challenges. That company must be professional enough to supply goods based on effective forecasting methods.

Forecasting

Forecasting customer trends and needs would help you to prepare for the upcoming holiday season needs. You should carry out in-depth analysis and study previous trends to get an idea of customer demands.

By studying previous trends, your companies can strategize smartly and prevent running out of goods. In terms of the Coronavirus, looking at the previous data would not be of great help. Instead, you should detect consumer requirements and plan accordingly.

Right Supplier

Choosing the right supplier will get you the right products at the right time. If you are new to the business, try ordering from different suppliers, and don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversifying different options will have different times and different levels of service. This way, you will get the idea of the most suitable supplier.

Professional Transport Management System (TMS)

TMS can play an important role in procurement to logistics and lifecycle management.Professional Transport Management System can monitor your whole process of the supply chain, and track your products. It also improves communication between manufacturers, distributors, and other commercial partners.
Opting for TMS can streamline your process and help you manage your transport operations more effectively.

Streamlining Internal Processes

Streamlining internal processes is also necessary for smooth supply chain management during the holiday season. Some packages will go on missing, some will not arrive on time, and others will get damaged. How you cope up with such issues makes it crucial to streamline your processes.

Having a hurdle should not disrupt your whole operation. Instead, you should look for possible ways to overcome such issues without affecting the rest of the process.

Wrap Up

The key to delivering the right products to your customers at the right time is to study customers’ changing needs. The long term goal should be to develop a supply chain resiliency to avoid disruptions in the future. This applies to normal circumstances as well as unexpected global conditions such as a pandemic.