Mastering The Supply Chain — Specscart’s Way!
Going to a local supermarket for a daily necessity and finding empty shelves. The reason? The product has not arrived due to the unavailability of truck drivers.
Placing an order through e-commerce sites and having to wait way beyond the estimated delivery date. The reason? Congestion at ports, leading to delays in supply.
Above-mentioned are a couple of scenarios that were commonly faced by most of us, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. The deep impact of the pandemic on the global supply chain continues to linger.
Supply chain bottlenecks: Out in the open
What was deemed to be a modern-day advanced supply chain was just not ready for something like the pandemic. Two years into the pandemic, the supply chain has still not been able to adapt completely. This data from the website of the Office for National Statistics denote the same.
In the period ranging from February 2021 to February 2022, 30% of businesses in manufacturing, and wholesale and retail trade reported global supply chain disruption.
Specscart’s Resilience
Our business too was exposed to the repercussions brought about in the supply chain by the pandemic. While planning our course of action, two of our most important objectives were to ensure that our products remained in stock and that we could deliver them to our customers in a quick time.
To achieve it, we did make some immediate adjustments and constantly kept a close eye on the prevailing situation to follow it up with changes as and when needed. But what worked in our favour was the additional measures that we had taken — before the pandemic — to be prepared for any sort of unknown variable.
Here are some of the strategies ingrained into our business model that came to the rescue when we needed them the most.
Keeping our manufacturers in the loop and vice-versa
There was no manufacturing establishment that was left untouched by the pandemic. Their sourcing of raw materials did suffer a setback due to reported shortages, which was further amplified by shipping & freight delays.
Effective two-way communication with our manufacturers is what we constantly maintain.
Coordinating with our manufactures beforehand and planning the minute details helped us manage the challenges related to supply of our consignments efficiently. The focus has always been on developing a resilient inventory and diversifying our supply chain networks, which is what comes next in this write-up.
Stockpiling inventory constructively
A strategy for inventory management is crucial for any product-based business. In unprecedented times like the pandemic, it did get a little dicey.
The stock of our products had to be maintained taking into consideration the disruptions that the pandemic had caused. Right from the day we have started our business, we have always maintained a contingency for our inventory. This is to be prepared for an unforeseeable event similar to that of the pandemic.
We try our level best to ensure that you are not met with ‘out of stock’ displayed on your screens. It’s impossible to eliminate this altogether, but what we focus on is minimising it — thanks to our contingency plan.
Diversify: The buzzword
Global supply chain networks are complex. Product-based businesses need to be vigilant.
Globalisation has definitely given a fillip to international trade, but the supply chain networks — as they stand today — remain volatile. Well, there are lots of factors that are responsible for this volatility, and most of them are not under our control.
Our focus has been to diversify our supply chain, which is evident from the fact that we have our manufacturers spread across different geographic locations. Even if any of our supply chain network is disturbed, we have others to rely on.
Transparency
At Specscart, we believe in a transparent way of functioning. Whether it is our suppliers or our customers, we keep them informed with all that they need to know.
Due to the challenges posed by the pandemic, there were situations when the delivery of glasses took more time than what it would normally take if we keep the pandemic out of the equation. In such a case, while assigning the estimated time of arrival (ETA) to our customers, we made sure that we provided a time frame that is capable of being met.
The above-mentioned strategies helped us keep our one-of-a-kind free 24 hour dispatch service functional during the pandemic, except for the time when the severity of the pandemic was at its peak. However, through our website and all other modes of communication, we kept our customers informed about any changes in this service.
Meeting the delivery deadline was one thing, but what mattered most to us was building a personal bond with our customers, which is never possible if we don’t stay true to what we say.
The work goes on!
Our mission of changing the way people perceive eyeglasses warrants that we leave no stones unturned to ensure that our business works at its full potential, and this is what we constantly strive to do.
‘Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.’ At Specscart, we believe in this, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made our belief stronger.
