Should Distributors Join Associations To Improve Supply Chain Management?

Joining professional and trade associations can help individuals and businesses flourish in supply chain management. An article from Supply & Demand Chain Executive explains that associations also a useful tool to recruit new talent to the industry.

Why would a distribution organization choose to belong to a supply chain management trade association? Because not being a member says more than choosing to be a member. By not joining, the distributor is sending the wrong message. The distributor is, in effect, telling its employees or the people in its organization that it doesn’t take part in industry activities, it doesn’t want to support industry advocacy, and it doesn’t want to support education and training for its people. In wholesale distribution, trade association membership is vital. Networking is one of the major perks of joining an association, the Supply & Demand Chain Executive article notes. Some of the other benefits include access to industry research, which includes financial benchmarking studies and educational training.

Read the full article on the Advanced Distribution Today website.

The Brown Smith Wallace Distribution and Manufacturing Software Guides for 2013 are currently available.

You can download each one directly, or visit our main website to request a copy. Please follow the links below.

2013 Distribution Software

2013 Manufacturing Software

You can also request these guides, as well as all other materials, via our website: http://www.software4distributors.com/vendor/resources_index.aspx

Follow Us on Twitter

The Value of Working Together

A unified business strategy will push results to the bottom line and provide advantage over the competition by strengthening ties to customers and suppliers and promoting efficiency and cost prudency by replacing manual and paper-based processes with digital counterparts.

Exact Software's Gary Chervitz was recently featured in Supply & Demand Chain Executive where he discusses four tips to building a collaboration strategy:

• Corporate culture and behavior must reflect collaborative principles
• Use integrated technologies to revitalize ERP
• Reinvent the paper trail and increase accountability and visibility
• Monitor, measure and manage

Read the full article >>

Collaboration projects successfully help companies do more with less, work leaner and greener with fewer resources and lower operating expenses. Becoming more collaborative is truly a process, and keeping an eye upon continuous improvement efforts is essential. By combining these basic principles with the right collaborative technology, an organization will definitely find itself working together more effectively.

For more information about Exact Software, please visit: www.exactamerica.com or contact us: 1-800-468-0834, ext. 2650.