The dam has burst in regard to the demand for supply chain management services in the small business segment, according to recent Aberdeen research. The results of a December 2007 outsourcing survey of more than 300 organizations reveal that small businesses (with annual revenues of $50m or less) are reporting a major uptick in demand for SCM services.
Small business owners are often forced to spend an inordinate amount of time managing vendor relationships rather than focusing on core competences. While small companies with simple operations can often take care of supply chain management activities in-house, the time and effort required to manage the supply chain grows sharply as volume swells or delivery complexity increases.
Attending to requests for information and managing the many transactions along the supply chain are vital to avoid customer dissatisfaction brought on by late deliveries and poor response timing. In most cases, it makes more sense to work with SCM outsourcing providers.
Source: CRM Buyer, http://crmbuyer.com