Fall Logistics: Preparing Your Supply Chain For the Holiday Rush
The fall presents an exciting season for supply chains, and it’s the best time to prepare your company for the holiday rush. Holiday sales can make or break supply chains, and you are either prepared to handle more work — or you aren’t. Large companies like Amazon prepare their supply chain long before orders are expected to increase. If you want to give your business a competitive advantage, you should do the same. Improper preparation is the enemy of potential profit, and any companies that can’t keep up during this time of the year either fade away or fall behind. Here’s how to make sure your supply chain is prepared for the holiday rush.
Fall Logistics: Preparing Your Supply Chain For the Holiday Rush
Install Essential Software Upgrades
Install essential software upgrades before the holiday season rush. Upgrades include your office computers and branch out to include your invoicing and inventory software.
We all know the horror of an automatic update at the wrong time. However, if you make sure all of this is done by the time the holidays have come around, there are no unpleasant surprises.
If something doesn’t go as planned, there’s enough time to correct the issue.
Check with Third-Party Suppliers
The world’s biggest companies don’t work alone and now is an excellent time to check with any of your third-party suppliers. Part of preparing for the holiday rush is ensuring everyone in your supply chain is also.
A supply chain can do without weak links. If you find out that a supplier can’t keep up with the demand, then it’s better to know this before the holiday season rather than in the middle of the sales rush.
Always know the sure answer: are your third-party suppliers as ready for the holiday rush as you’ll need them to be?
Have Backup Suppliers
An effective supply chain has at least three reliable backups for its third-party suppliers. If someone can’t keep up with the holiday rush or has an emergency in the middle of an order, make sure you know a company (or three) reliable enough to take over.
Never assume that your regular companies are always prepared enough to handle the increased order load. Sometimes, they’re not, and it’s easier to find this out in the fall.
Train Staff for the Incoming Rush
Supply chain staff should be prepared for the incoming rush and know precisely what to do when there are more orders to handle. This counts for everyone in the supply chain, from data entry to drivers: everyone should be able to function as a whole, even under pressure.
An effective supply chain works just like the middle of a high-end restaurant kitchen. People know exactly what their role is, and they’ve been prepared for the height of the dinner or lunch rush.
Any supply chain company should be able to say the same.
Have a Test Run
The fall is an excellent time to have a test run, demonstrating how fast you can fulfill a particular order during the holiday rush. Time the progress, and see how well your supply chain is able to keep up. Try again, and see if your progress can be improved.
The fall is the perfect time to do this because there’s enough time to make adjustments before the holiday rush arrives.
Everything from kitchens to emergency rooms has regular drills to ensure their staff works together well. Supply chains preparing for the holiday season should be doing the same.
Prepare for Flaws
If supply chain businesses can take one phrase into the busy holiday season, it’s to expect the unexpected. The more you’ve prepared for something to go wrong, the less surprised you’re going to be if it happens.
Preparation is always better than lacking during the holiday season when time and effectiveness are highly valued.
Don’t prepare for the idea that nothing will go wrong. Instead, prepare various plans that can set out what you’re going to do if something happens.
That separates prepared supply chains from those that appear to have no idea what’s going on when an order doesn’t make it to the destination in time.
Prepare your supply chain during the fall, and you’re guaranteed to have a faster and better supply chain during the winter.
USA Global Logistics
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