Skills time-bomb threatens SA’s supply chain effectiveness

JOY ORLEK
‘COMPETE GLOBALLY or close down’ pretty much sums up the challenge facing SA companies in an increasingly globalised market place. But senior executives in many of SA’s biggest companies are struggling to come to terms with the global supply chain revolution and to find the necessary high-level skills to turn around the expensive and inefficient SA logistics infrastructure to the benefit of their industries and companies. This was one of the findings of the third supplychainforesight research report initiated by Barloworld Logistics and released in Johannesburg last week. The comprehensive study, incorporating the views of 330 senior executives in major SA companies, reveals a far greater commitment to collaboration with suppliers and customers in order to cut costs in the supply chain and meet improved service level criteria. There is also increasing acknowledgement that supply chain strategies must be aligned to business objectives. “If we fail to integrate our operations and collaborate in a cost-effective and strategic way with suppliers and markets elsewhere in the world, we may fail to capitalise on our current position of economic strength as the USA of Africa,” Barloworld Logistics Africa divisional director marketing and sales John van Wyk told FTW. But a skills ‘timebomb’ was identified as the most critical issue facing the industry. “The relative lack of strategic focus and the shortage of corresponding skills to implement such a strategy represent a real risk,” the report notes. “If they are to move forward, South Africa’s supply chains have to take on board the lessons which globalisation is teaching countries like India and China. “Their supply chains are service and solution orientated and are driven by information and management skills. They are competing against our own supply chains which are still expensive, largely asset-based, and struggling to develop beyond the borders of South Africa.”