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Manufacturing Today Europe: Cognizant’s Assistant Vice President of Manufacturing and Logistics Makes a Case for Customers to be at the Heart of Supply Chain Design

“Consumers are more demanding and expectant of personalised products and services that meet their individual needs,” writes Rohit Gupta. “While retailers have been quick to respond to this, recent research in partnership with SAP, the Manufacturing Success report by Cognizant, found that manufacturers are falling behind. They are missing out on opportunities to streamline their supply chain, attract new customers and retain existing business.” Excerpts:

“While we have seen positive growth over the past year, UK manufacturers are still grappling with increasing customer complexity. In order to truly succeed and grow, embracing customer demands, and putting them at the heart of everything manufacturers do is key.

Traditionally, most supply chains are designed from the factory outwards and focus on supplier operations, particularly where cost and efficiency are concerned. However, it is no secret that competition is changing—when once it was just down to new businesses entering the market, it has become heightened by demanding customers, products are more easily copied and markets are commoditised. Up to this point, manufacturers looking to grow would focus on making operations faster and more efficient by running better, but now they also need to be innovative by running differently.

As a result of this shift, over the next couple of years, manufacturers need to be prepared for customers to demand more value-added services (67 per cent), involvement in product development (49 per cent), interest in customised products (45 per cent) and demand for supply chain transparency (45 per cent).

A big responsibility falls to the supply chain: it needs to be designed with the customer at the heart. It is crucial manufacturers really understand their customers to determine how they should be better served. Manufacturers also need to develop a better understanding of their supply chains, thereby increasing visibility and achieving greater flexibility by collaborating with the supplier ecosystem to ensure customer centricity.

One way manufacturers can achieve this is to look towards social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) technologies to get better insight into customer behaviour and trends, as well as how they react to products from their competitors. Use of collaboration platforms can boost their understanding of market developments and provide flexibility, thereby increasing manufacturers’ agility and ability to react quickly to changing customer habits, giving them an edge over their rivals.”

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