Supply Chain in FMCG Companies – The need to be dynamic

We haven’t posted a lot of blogs about supply so far therefore I will explain a little bit more about supply operations and the challenges within the organization:
Supply Chain is a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Basically, it’s a complex structure of activities that should be organized and synchronized to deliver the finished goods.

Considering the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) industries, like Reckitt Benckiser, things are even more complex. It’s necessary to have a network of suppliers who provide thousands of items that will generate hundreds of different finished goods. And after manufacturing, their delivery is also laborious: customer’s networks are huge. To give you some numbers: a FMCG company who wants to cover all Brazilian territory must have something like a thousand delivery points.

And it is becoming even more complex: today the big challenge is to reduce costs and improving service level simultaneously. As an example: it’s mandatory to work with lower inventory levels, but obviously this reduces margins for mistakes and delays; it’s very important to be accurate on raw material suppliers delivery schedules and also have a well balanced inventory of finished goods to raise the fill rate level.

So, how to work in an environment like this?

Operations must be clockwork, and problems must be identified and solved quickly. It’s important to have consolidated and trustable information, and also automated and integrated processes to reach this level of accuracy in supply operations.

But organized processes do not solve all the issues on its’s own. It’s fundamental to have people as dynamic as the processes to enable the FMCG supply chain work perfectly.

The ideal Supply Chain worker must have good analytical capacity to be able to understand where the issues are. He/she needs to think fast, to quickly solve any problems. And the most important: must have high communication skills to interact with all the people of the chain, it doesn’t matter if they are suppliers, colleagues or customers.

For comparison, working in the Supply Chain area is similar to play timed-chess (the one you need to press the button every time you play). You have to analyze the situation, decide what to do and actually do it. But you do not have all day to think about it: time is running fast.

So, for the ones who like to be challenged, Supply Chain is a great opportunity to work with dynamic processes and not facing the same routine everyday. Once you enter, I bet you won’t leave. At least, I’m sure I won’t.

You find more information about RB’s Supply Chain Graduate Programme on http://www.reckittbenckiser.jobs/graduates/programmes