Is Your Enterprise Flexible Enough To Scale?

Is Your Enterprise Flexible Enough To Scale?

Scalability is important. In this annual Third-Party Logistics edition, you will find partners and resources to ensure your enterprise is flexible enough to scale.

Supply chain scalability is important and here’s one reason why. In 1950, 80 cities in the world had a population of more than one million; today, it’s 500 cities. In 1950, the world population was 2.5 billion people; the current world population is more than 8 billion people.

Given this growth in population, and in urban areas, how is it possible that the transportation, logistics, and supply chain sector was able to track and serve the consumption needs of all those people?

Several advances played a pivotal role: Global investment in transportation infrastructure, inexpensive energy sources, Malcom McLean’s containerization concept, rapid development of new and better transportation equipment, the evolution of pure-play carriers into logistics solutions providers, and successive waves of new transportation technologies and communications methods.

At the enterprise level, one sure way to scale is having the right philosophy. A demand-driven supply chain, for example, aligns demand from your customers to your supply. Your vendors fire up your ability to scale to meet massive production and fulfillment demand increases driven by population growth.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned, especially during the past few years, it’s that business process scalability is important for other types of scalability:

  • Horizontal scalability, which involves building out new services, products, and customer locations serving lateral growth.
  • Vertical scalability, which takes two forms. The obvious one is where you must scale up to meet increasing demand. But, sometimes there’s a requirement to scale down in keeping with demand fall-off like many see today. How can you scale down and limit the pain without cutting into the bone or choking the enterprise? Those with demand-driven enterprise practices have a management advantage.

In many cases, logistics and fulfillment partnerships with 3PLs can be a force multiplier when markets turn down. 3PLs can provide:

Flexible capacity to meet both transportation and warehousing service needs.

The latest technology without investment or the need for qualified staff to build your own.

Theoretical and management advice. A skilled thought-leading 3PL who specializes in mastering the latest supply chain developments and concepts can help you keep up with constantly shape-shifting customer demands without draining your P&L statement.

Scalability is important. In this annual Third-Party Logistics edition, you will find partners and resources to ensure your enterprise is flexible enough to scale.