Supply Chain Management for Outsourced Manufacturing

The answer is yes. The cloud approach is both mature and functionally deep enough to drive a significant level of IT success for today’s new generation of supply chain experts. The supply chain world is experiencing a major structural shift as more companies rely on a community of partners worldwide to carry out the complex dance of designing, manufacturing, and distributing products. Today, the majority of supply chain activity already takes place in a virtual, “cloud-like” environment—outside the four walls of one company, across a global web of trading partners. This new approach, called Community Supply Chain Management, demands a new technology model and cloud computing is a natural fit. When it comes to business applications, the emerging “as a service” delivery model—e.g. Software as a Service, or SaaS—might be considered a cloud application. However, unless it is massively scalable and available to many users simultaneously, it is just a variation on license models and not necessarily a true cloud application.

Compared to traditional software, SaaS-based CRM and ERP vendors have been successful in delivering significantly better performance, security, and reliability—all at a lower cost—for optimal levels of customized, secure processes. This has paved the way for a move into mission-critical, multi-company SCM. And unlike the original SaaS model in which a vendor runs an application on its own servers rather than on a company’s private services, the cloud provides access to thousands, or even millions of supply chain community members—anywhere, at any time, through an intuitive front end. It requires little to no IT expertise and those leveraging the cloud model need not worry about software installation or maintenance.

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