Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Solutions
VICS provides collaboration services for business people and organizations. From the association website, it is possible to see its active involvement in collaboration services. Through its “Ultimate Retail Supply Chain Machine,” the organization champions for the implementation of “new retail automatic replenishment solutions” to assist in boosting business flow and ease of operation (VICS). The organization’s vision is central to supply chain management. It champions for seamless and efficient movement of products globally, thereby maximizing stakeholders, retailers, suppliers, and manufacturers’ value. Attaining these objectives is an uphill task. It is due to this realization, that the organization engages the business fraternity in forums and conferences aimed at developing standard and highly reputable guidelines, which can work in the real world business scenario.
The activities of the organization are closely related to supply chain management. New CPFR Guideline, developed by the organization, is of great help to supply chain management. The guidelines provide forecasts for retailers to plan on flow of products, thereby avoiding shortages. This is central to supply chain management. The availability of focused plans enables suppliers to plan for any eventualities that may arise. This reduces significantly, any uncertainties that may cloud supply chain resulting in price fluctuations. The organization’s role in linking suppliers with consumers is also in line with supply chain management. Supply is only complete when customers are readily available. Therefore, by linking consumers to suppliers, the organization facilitates supply management activities. The organization also promotes “New Store Management System.” This links manufacturers to retailers and enable them to focus on increasing sales. These two aspects contribute significantly to energy efficiency. The reason is that the time for seeking products and ordering is significantly reduced since the organization offers linkages.
Effective guidelines for supply chain management should incorporate all stakeholders, consumers, retails, suppliers, and manufacturers. The organization’s guidelines and products seem to take care of these interest groups. The organization’s practices, if implemented to the latter, can reduce cost significantly, and make products readily available for consumers.
Accenture Academy
Accenture academy is another equally important website that contributes to supply chain management in various ways. The academy provides various curriculum subjects for both organizational staff and students. Its core areas of specialization include finance, sustainability, supply chain, and workforce optimization (Accenture Academy). The academy strives to provide curriculum content that focuses on increasing employees and business’ performance. The curriculum and courses of academy have been tailored to meet roles and competencies necessary for supply chain management, finance, and sustainability in the present dynamic business environment. The courses have been designed using real world experiences and proven to comply with the latest role expectations in the respective fields. The academy’s mode of instruction is equally effective. It employs “online self-study courses, live webinars, case-based learning, simulations, and extensive online resources,” which make the learning process seamless and enjoyable (Accenture Academy).
The academy’s mode of instruction and courses are a perfect demonstration of effective operational practices. The academy has put in place structures that bring together their professionals and learners to foster closer ties necessary for in-depth understanding of the curriculum content. Better still, their curriculum and content is determined by the needs of their learners. This eliminates unnecessary content, which may not add any value to learners. By providing such effective and well-structured courses in supply chain management, the academy has been taking a role in furthering supply chain management knowledge and expertise to its learners. This role cannot be ignored. Most importantly, the academy’s ability to tailor its learning environment, its curriculum, and business environment to meet its learners’ expectations, is a big plus to its learning objectives.
Supply chain management is about identifying areas that need improvement and finding efficient and cost effective ways of improving them. Accenture academy seems to have realized it and as a result, it improved its learning experience significantly. By tailoring its curriculum to the learners’ needs, the academy has taken a positive step towards effective service delivery, a core requirement, and component of supply chain management. The academy’s website is another testimony of their commitment to simplified, easy to use, yet effective operational objectives. It is simple, but conveys all necessary information.
McKinsey Global Institute
McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) is an institution committed to offering education to business leaders in both private and public sectors to equip them with relevant and up-to-date skills on business management in the dynamic global market. Additionally, the provide the leaders with facts obtained from credible researches on business managements, prospects , futuristic projections, and environmental issues in business to enable them make important management decisions with confidence. This, in the end, is aimed at reinforcing the leaders’ ability to “make distinctive, lasting, and substantial improvements in performance, and constantly build a great firm that attracts, develops, excites, and retains exceptional people” (McKinsey Quarterly).
The organization emphasizes effective management of all aspects of business operations for success to be realized on the global platform. Success on the global platform, according to the organization, requires effective cost reduction, and adoption of well-developed and efficient strategies. In cost cutting, they propose outsourcing of products, which are costly to produce or those whose profit margin is small. Outsourcing is a common practice in supply chain management. In attempts to capture markets entirely, organizations often choose to supply related products they do not produce to ensure that customers rely solely on them for their needs. This ensures continues supply and market security for the suppliers. Supply chain management is also about strategizing. This makes the institution’s mandate related to supply chain management.
Managers are at the center of all business decisions. Therefore, by targeting them, the organization is capable of changing the way businesses are run, and how decisions are made. If managers are not in a position to make sound business decisions, the success of their businesses is limited. Considering the importance of strategy and outsourcing to any business’ success, the organizations’ bid to instill knowledge relating to these two variables in managers is a positive move.