The Benefits Of A Fractional Supply Chain Leader

Maybe you’re not quite big enough to need a full-time supply chain leader or resource, but you’re feeling the pinch of #supplychainproblems that just don’t seem to go away.  Or perhaps you’re on a growth trajectory that commands changes to how you’ve always been doing things, or building new capabilities to enable the execution of that growth.

Fractional leaders and resources provide great benefit to companies that don’t quite need a full-time, heavy-hitter, but could really benefit from the knowledge, experience, and strategic abilities of people only the Fortune-500 list can dream of (and, ahem, afford).

Some of the symptoms of a business that may be an indicator of readiness for a Fractional Supply Chain Leader:

• You have a buyer or buyers that primarily submit purchase orders and pay invoices
• You haven’t done a market analysis for your materials to understand best sourcing options
• Your logistics team is Bob in shipping/receiving who books a few trucks and loads them himself
• Successful materials planning is heavily driven by tribal knowledge from a buyer
• You believe you are not paying for transportation on inbound materials because your price is all-in
• Inventory inaccuracies mean you have much more WIP than you would like

A key challenge for many burgeoning businesses is that they need to know what they don’t know, but they don’t need a full-time person to guide them on that journey.  Partnering with a Fractional leader for as little as a few hours a week can begin to build awareness of better-practices and also build capabilities in the existing organization.  This best of both worlds approach allows you to leverage the talent and knowledge of your existing team while also having access to better-practices that can transform your supply chain performance.

You might benefit from a Fractional Supply Chain Leader if:

• Your supply chain would benefit from some strategic thought or an improvement roadmap
• Your business is experiencing growth and you’re feeling problems with purchasing, inventory management, transportation service or spend, or production efficiencies
• You are expanding into new markets and don’t have the knowledge on your team for how best to do it
• Your business would benefit from cost-savings and service improvement activities
• Your business has never used an MRP system but would like to move towards one (hint: if you don’t know what MRP means, you probably check this box)
• You’re not sure how to solve repeat problems with inventory accuracy or unpredictable freight costs
• You seem to be outgrowing your current production or warehouse space
• You feel like things aren’t quite working well but you and your team aren’t totally sure how to improve

Waypost Advisors is a team of experienced, talented professionals that have real-world, boots-on-the-ground experience and a dedication to helping you accomplish the important work.  We don’t just want to think big ideas, we want to become an integral part of your team that drives the results that you want.  Because we have a passion for small-to-medium manufacturers, we tailor an approach that balances both your need for knowledge and cost-effectiveness.  Our advisors love to geek-out about their topics of expertise and we love to understand your pain-points and share how we would approach them.