A Financial Times report last week suggested that businesses facing difficulties as a result of the ongoing recession should look to both short and long-term changes to their supply chains in order to cut costs.
Offering examples of ways in which UK brands have managed to cut outgoings without cutting jobs, the article highlighted the joint benefit of going green in an attempt to cut costs.
Marks and Spencer's announcement, for example, that it would cut energy usage by 25 per cent offered the company the chance to save money by changing the lightbulbs used in their food stores, killing two birds with one stone.
Despite the short-term cost implications of outsourcing supply chain management, the decision to do so could leave many companies with a more efficient supply chain than they would have if they simply kept all operations in house.
Companies hoping to either tout their own low CO2 emissions or simply cut costs ahead of a potentially deepening economic crisis could benefit from the experience and the contacts that a third-party supply chain management company could offer.
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