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Training - Supply Security

 

Supply Security is seldom offered in procurement as a training course, but it most definitely should be. Negotiation is one of the most ubiquitous courses available and yet what good are low prices if your materials aren’t available to feed your factories? Indeed, the catalyst for setting up this course was just how many businesses I’ve seen struggling to secure their supply and the number of times I get asked to help fix supply issues.

Risks on material supply should be no surprise to us and are only set to get worse.  There's no question about the impact of climate change and then consider population growth - it was only 200 years ago that The World’s population was 1BN. By 1974 it was 4BN and by 2023 it will have doubled to 8BN – that’s 8 times more mouths to feed creating significant pressure on the environment, natural resources and the primary production of materials. Now Covid-19 has really made us sit up and think!

This course helps the procurement professional understand the rapidly evolving playing field for material supply and how to evaluate the risks. We then learn and practice a suite of powerful tools and techniques for how to maximise supply security.

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Benefits

The benefits of having your supply more secure are likely to be far greater than any cost savings you can achieve. Typical benefits I’ve seen with companies I’ve worked with is a lower likelihood of:

  • Expensive out of stock situations

  • Reputation damage with your customers for short-supplying them or supplying them late

  • Costly product recalls

  • Needing to go into the market at short notice, paying over the odds for sub-standard material

  • Expensive emergency logistics to expedite delivery

  • Expensive factory stoppages

  • Consequential costs of having to engage additional resource at short notice to fix supply issues

  • Stress for you as running tight on supply is a nerve-wracking business - I've been there myself!

Other Notes

Course Material

Attendees will receive a full training pack containing a summary of content from the day as well as copies of all case studies and group exercises

Trainer

Frost, Procurement Adventurer

Course Length

1 day intensive, 2 days advanced

Location

Typically, clients like to host the training on their own site. I get asked to train all round the World and I'll head to where you'd like to be. From time-to-time I run a course open to people from non-competing businesses in a fixed location. This course can be run remotely by video conference.

Cost

Depending on your specific needs and on request.

Client Feedback

"Simons is a fantastic coach - he has a wealth of knowledge and diversity of experience to bring training to life and is great at breaking down any problem and simplifying it with models. Simon brings the right balance of support and objective provocation to enhance your results".

Serena Haines - Global Category Manager, Mars 

Course Prospectus

Course Approach

This highly interactive course is tailored specifically to your materials and product portfolio. Participants will learn a range of core skills for supply security, discuss a number of examples and practice with a bespoke case study. We will then spend a good part of the day assessing the risks for your portfolio and how to devise robust and appropriate supply security plans.

 

Course Level

I will flex this course from the procurement specialist in the early part of their career to the senior procurement leader who needs a company wide programme to secure their business’ supply.

 

Sectors Covered

This course is aimed primarily at securing the supply of raw materials, semi-finished goods and finished goods for food, drink and packaging. The techniques can also be applied equally well to a range of other sectors such as the garment trade and the production of parts and equipment where the supply chain has multiple steps and primary materials or components are converted into finished goods.  

 

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, you will be able to assess end-to-end supply risks and devise mitigation strategies to maximise the security of your specified materials and products. Specifically, you will be able to:

  • Understand the potential macro causes of supply risk and how climate change and geo-political factors may exacerbate this in years to come

  • Capture and map risks right across a multi-modal supply chain

  • Select the most appropriate risk indicators to assess each step of the supply chain

  • Assess the potential impact and severity of risks that are identified

  • Calibrate and evaluate the risks to provide a meaningful picture of the highest risk areas

  • Quantify and predict the amount of product available to your business as a percentage of the total global availability

  • Select appropriate risk reduction levers that provide maximum ROI

  • Translate paper-based plans into actionable and time bound workflows

  • Create compelling stories to engage your stakeholders in activating your plans

  • Gain sign off of your proposed plan with your senior colleagues

  • Engage your suppliers to deliver the plans

  • Create relevant KPIs that can be used to track performance and demonstrate increasing supply security

  • Tackle industry wide supply challenges

  • Select and set up an on-line system if appropriate

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