Being a Supply Chain Manager

“A key to achieving success is to assemble a strong and stable management team.”

~VivekWadhwa, Entrepreneur

Supply chain managementbegins from product planning and goes on until the said product reaches the consumer’s hands. It covers all the stages that a product goes through, right from conception to reaching the end user, such as planning, procurement of raw materials, processing and manufacturing, warehousing, distributionand after sales services. As a supply chain manager, you must ensure that all this is executed with utmost precision, so that the company can achieve the highest possible profit out of product sales.

Job Description of a Supply Chain Manager

Here are some of the duties that a manager will be required to perform for efficient supply chain management:

1. Material sourcing and planning
2. Monitoring and auditing the supplies
3. Sourcing components
4. Establishing new suppliers
5. Monitoring and developing the existing supply chain for every product
6. Initiating cost saving methods
7. Negotiating and managing contracts.

Top 5 Qualities of a Good Supply Chain Manager

There are certain key skills that a manager must possess in order to produce results and promote good supply chain management.

1. Understanding Technology: Managers need to have a good pulse on what is happening on a daily basis within the business, especially in the consumer web, ensuring that the supply chain is being modified to suit the customers’ needs. This can help a business adapt and evolve ahead of the competition.

2. Follow from the Front: A manager is also required to remove all the roadblocks from the paths of employees in order to help them succeed and stick to the deadlines. In fact, itgoes beyond managing people, and actually aims atempowering and engaging workers.

3. Be an expert: You need to have answers to at least the majority of the questions. You need to keep the strategies fresh and need to know at least the basics of everything.

4. Trust: Micromanaging is a sign of very poor supply chain management. After you have laid the tasks to the various departmentsand also chalked out the expectations, trust them to do the said tasks effectively.

5. Communication: With so many aspects in the supply chain, a manager needs to be able to communicate effectively to make sure each process transitions without any hitches.

Asupply chain manager’s duties will begin right from procurement of raw materials to quality end products, delivered on time to the customers.

Transfer Pricing

Overcoming the Transfer Pricing Risk

Today’s business organisations are operating in a complex environment, filled with unprecedented uncertainty. The globalisation has brought in a huge volume of inter-company transactions, which have brought the onset of a number of regulations and law enforcements, making transfer pricing a major risk management concern for multinational businesses.

Like any other preceding issue, finance and audit companies have seized this opportunity to create a globally managed transfer pricing network, catering to global business operations. The objective here is to reduce the risk, using a strategic approach to support these pricing activities, thus resolving disputes efficiently.

Transfer Pricing Planning and Documentation

Global businesses are faced with both risk and opportunities, as they expand their volume of related party transactions and meet supply chain demands. This fuels the need for tax authority collaborations.

Strategic approaches and extensive documentation are a necessity to enable companies to achieve their tax planning objectives, both international and operational. A centralised global approach is necessary to facilitate uniformity andfor the elimination inconsistencies that may arise while a company caters to different supply markets. Hence, having a proper process in place forshielding a company’s financeis very important.

Dispute Avoidance and Advance Pricing Agreements

Transfer pricing leads to many operational and legal challenges, but most importantly it gives rise to a magnitude of taxation uncertainties, which include the potential of the management to carry out proper examination and implementation. For almost all businesses, such uncertainties are unacceptable business risks that need to be eliminated or reduced.

Advance pricing agreements enable the companies to enter into agreements with one or more tax authorities, well in advance. This helps them achieve a level of certainty, especially in areas of double taxation relief, etc.

Dispute Resolution

Missteps that are the outcome of transfer pricingbring in the tax authority enquires. The most effective and efficient defence mechanism for any company is to bring in the early involvement of an experienced team of specialists. The team should be able to carry out careful examinations through the advance pricing agreements, thus finally able to build administrative appeals, and lead litigation processes in any jurisdiction.

Business Model Optimization

The current economic scenario is pigeonholed by the racing technology upgrades, implementation of the best business practices and the numerous legislative changes. Business Model Optimization helps balancing the demands of both operations and tax laws, integrating them into one unit model.

This ensures that the tax planning does not curtail the company’s bottom line and also further helps sustain the business values.