Competition and the global supply chain

Simply stated, increasing globalization has changed everything for mid-sized manufacturers. Gone are the days of the static five-year plan and merely staying on top of your closest rivals. Technology—most obviously, the Internet—has inspired and enabled the growth of global supply chains.

Your suppliers and competition could be across town or, just as easily, two continents away, so now is the time to rethink traditional business models. Emerging economies in China, India, Eastern Europe and Latin America are redefining the way that the manufacturing industry has done business for decades.

With the Internet’s near-instant information flow, it doesn’t matter whether your supply chain partner is next door or in another part of the world. Business transactions are so automated that they often run 24 hours a day, every day of the year. How you use the speed of the Internet can determine your success in the global marketplace.

As global business models challenge perceptions about what can be accomplished, innovative manufacturers track available technology and look for opportunities to use it in ways that nobody else has discovered. Most often these opportunities focus on speed, visibility or flexibility.

In business today, change is rapid and unrelenting. Ignore it—or try to simply figure it out as you go—and you could fall far behind. Now more than ever, anticipating what’s next and knowing how to act on it is vital to business survival.

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