Acenture: Chemical industry neds to share best practices

Logistics Insight Asia, 1/1/2008

Nearly two-thirds of supply chain professionals in the chemicals industry say their companies have no formal processes for identifying and sharing supply chain best practices,says a study released by Accenture.

The 2007 Global Chemical Industry Supply Chain Best Practices Study is based on a survey of 400 supply chain professionals in Asia, Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East. The study is the second in a series focusing on the increasing importance of the supply chain in the chemicals industry; the first study was released in 2005.

While only 37 percent of survey respondents in this year’s survey said their companies have formal processes for sharing best practices, even fewer – 11 percent – said that best practices are documented, translated into standard operating procedures and measured at their company. Even worse, only four percent said their companies have captured best practices in one place and made them available to all supply chain professionals within their organization.

Some improvement
“Sharing of best practices has improved over the last two years, but there are still areas for improvement,” says Christopher Lange, study author and a senior executive in Accenture’s Chemicals practice. “While companies have traditionally looked at the supply chain as a way to cut costs, they now look at it as a strategic and financially important part of the business, and a way to generate value and revenue. In a competitive global landscape, sharing best practices will be critical to increasing performance.”

The 2007 study results indicate that supply chain professionals are doing better at collaborating and communicating with customers than they were two years ago. For instance, the percent of supply chain professionals who said they collaborate and communicate with customers to make sales forecasts has more than tripled in the past two years, from just seven percent in 2005 to 24 percent in 2007.