This is a bridge exam topic as well and is designed to empower and enhance the visibility and impact of supply management. Here the supply manager reaches out to two sets of audiences. The first is top management who are primarily interested in cost savings - so when you talk try to highlight cost savings as a percentage of current costs. So your graphs and charts should very clearly and simply demonstrate the benefit in terms of costs that your new strategy will involve. Think of it this way- just as sales needs to emphasize revenue increases either by the increase in quantity or price - the supply manager has to figure out the quantity- price-terms combination including other aspects of total cost to emphasize what the net impact of a strategic change should look like. Naturally, if sales can sell more units its not a problem but if supply is short it can be - a big problem! One more technique of getting top management buy-in is to allow top managers to take credit for some of your ideas, although it might seem hard initially. This way, research suggests that many initiatives roll along much better.
Users or internal customers are the second constituency you need to reach out to. Here too the more the awareness of what you can do as a supply manager and what good things you are doing, can go along way in enhancing the visibility and importance of supply management. Feedback, good presentations and 360 degree surveys are appropriate methods of communicating and marketing the value of supply management to internal users.
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