December 6, 2024 Outsmart Disruption: The Power of Purpose-Built

Don’t let disruptions derail you—learn how purpose-built solutions drive flexibility and scalability in modern supply chains.

By Kevin Wong, Chief Operating Officer, Nulogy

Brand manufacturing supply chains, especially those in industries such as food and beverage, over-the-counter and pharma, continue to grapple with volatility and variability in an unprecedented market. Disruptions—whether driven by geopolitical conflicts, economic swings, shifting consumer demands, or climate change—pose significant financial risks.

The challenge is even greater for brand manufacturers outsourcing up to 30% of their product innovation and go-to-market efforts to co-packers, contract manufacturers, and logistics partners. Mitigating risks tied to coordination and visibility with these partners is critical.

Let’s explore why relying on rigid, generalized solutions falls short in today’s dynamic environment, and how adopting purpose-built technologies can drive faster ROI and build more resilient external supply chains.

Why the Supply Chain Status Quo is Obsolete

For decades, brand manufacturing external supply chains have settled into a status quo of implementing general-purpose technology solutions—such as monolithic ERP packages—to support their complex, industry-specific processes and workflows. This approach, however, comes with consequences:

• Lack of purpose-built capabilities: Enterprise planning solutions are often “stretched” beyond their primary function of business planning to encompass supplemental functions such as supply chain management.
• High costs: Many generalized enterprise software solutions demand upfront costs in company resources and finances. Large ERP implementations commonly take months or even years to complete, resulting in a slow time to value.
• Inability to flex or scale: Supply chains are evolving and adapting every single day to meet the needs of a rapidly shifting market. Interoperability and flexibility are key, but difficult to achieve when relying on a single, generalized vendor.

Redefining Supply Chain Resilience with Purpose-Built Solutions

When it comes to properly supporting and augmenting brand manufacturing external supply chains, purpose-built solutions offer the speed to value, specialized expertise, and scalability that is needed to succeed in today’s market, namely:

Capabilities and industry expertise that meet your needs

As opposed to relying on a single software vendor and shoehorning it into every business function, the future of supply chain technology is widely envisioned as an ecosystem of interoperable, purpose-built solutions. David Warrick, former General Manager of Global Supply Chain at Microsoft, espouses this approach as a network of applications best described as “Supply Chain as a Service.”

By adopting uniquely specialized cloud-based solutions for the supply chain needs of your enterprise, you not only empower each team with the software they need, but you also gain the expertise of each purpose-built solution you implement. Just as your organization relies on the know-how of specialized vendors and suppliers, you can rely on the same support from your technology providers.

Greater financial flexibility and speed to value

Purpose-built solutions offer far more flexibility while requiring less implementation time–commonly two to three months as opposed to at least a year. This flexibility allows for implementing smaller-scale pilot projects that maximize speed to value, which in turn allows for greater adoption of the system as proof of value is steadily realized.

These solutions also require little to no customization to get up and running, reducing the amount of internal resources needed to implement the fit for purpose system. This freeing of resources enables your teams to work on more strategic projects instead of spending their valuable time simply maintaining a system.

Increased scalability for future-proofed supply chains

Purpose-built solutions are often smaller, nimbler, and easier to implement at scale than large enterprise systems. These factors also mean that they offer an added advantage of allowing for pilot projects to demonstrate feasibility versus “all-in” large-scale implementations that can take years of time, resources, and capital–all of which may not yield the desired return for your organization.

Similarly, the flexibility of adopting purpose-built solutions means that as your network and business grows, your underlying systems can seamlessly grow with you.

Shifting to a “Supply Chain as a Service” strategy also means that each provider is responsible for ensuring their solution is up to date and continually tailored to your needs–ensuring that they will support you both today and in the future.

The Future of Supply Chain Purpose-Built

In a supply chain environment where disruption is the new normal, agility and resilience are no longer optional–they’re essential. Reliance on generalized, monolithic software systems has left many organizations struggling to keep up with the pace of change. Purpose-built solutions like Nulogy’s cloud-based platform are empowering FMCG brands and their external partners to unlock supply chain agility and respond to market dynamics swiftly.

It’s time to move beyond the limitations of one-sizes-fits-all systems and invest in solutions purposefully designed to meet the unique needs of your business. After all, the path to sustained competitive advance lies not just in surviving disruption, but transforming it into a catalyst for growth.

About the Author:
Kevin Wong is the Chief Operating Officer and a co-founder of Nulogy, where he has played a pivotal role in shaping the product vision and strategy of the business.

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