‍Normalcy is within reach for operations leaders. But despite the positive outlook, a lot of work remains to be done. To ensure that supply chains are better equipped to handle disruption, many leaders are prioritizing digital transformations — implementing emerging technologies like the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning to name a few.  

Yet these technological advancements come at a cost, as there's simply a lack of qualified and skilled workers to manage and take care of them. This talent shortage has serious consequences for businesses, leading to increased talent acquisition costs, lower efficiency, and slower growth. 

Another major contributing factor to the talent shortage problem is the lack of educational and training programs for supply chain management and operations — impacting the number of qualified individuals entering the workforce. So how have operations leaders been navigating the talent gap in today's historically tight labor market? 

On-Demand Talent Acquisition: A Proven Approach to Addressing Immediate Talent Needs

There are several approaches business leaders can deploy to address immediate talent needs. They can opt for using a recruiting firm or staffing agency, or they can go the other route and leverage training and educational programs to upskill their workforces.

While all of these approaches make sense, at a time when speed and agility are vital to navigating uncertainty and obtaining a competitive advantage, business leaders need another approach. More specifically, a solution that can give them the flexibility needed to operate in this ever-changing environment. 

For this reason, many business leaders are leveraging emerging on-demand talent acquisition platforms like Graphite. These solutions provide companies with access to top-tier talent on demand, faster than traditional talent acquisition models, and at a more cost-effective rate. 

With a more flexible and cost-effective solution in place, business leaders like you can enjoy the benefits of a more agile workforce without all the trappings of the traditional approaches mentioned above. 

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How 4 Companies Are Achieving Strategic Goals with Independent Operations Talent  

With the accelerated pace of disruptive technology, you know that your supply chain and operations need a certain level of flexibility to pivot and adapt at a moment's notice. To attain this, you need to not only have the best technology to facilitate this transition, but you also need a workforce that is capable of doing the same. 

Having the right skill sets in this context is key. While the talent challenge mentioned above can make it difficult to achieve your business goals, leaning on a platform like Graphite can help. Yet you'll likely want some examples of leveraging the growing independent workforce, so we've curated four customer stories to give you a look. 

Improving Productivity and Efficiency 

Delivering on customer expectations means having the right tools and systems in place to address their needs. Such was the case for this last-mile real estate firm. After undergoing a strategic planning session with key business stakeholders, a list of strategic objectives to enhance the customer experience was identified. 

One such initiative was the implementation of a self-service portal. Through this portal, its clients could report their property issues, with the system automatically routing the ticket to the right vendor and providing an estimated completion time and date. 

But setting up the process requires an expert adept at creating the proper workflows for this specific context. Because the company wanted to accomplish this project quickly, it needed to find someone with the industry and system know-how without too much training or onboarding. 

So rather than looking for a full-time employee, which could take up to two months to find and onboard, or leverage a consulting firm, it decided to find an independent subject matter expert that could be hired on demand on Graphite. 

Through the platform, the firm onboarded an independent expert with over 15 years of experience in the real estate space. Initially, the expert was expected to work with the project manager, but after realizing the depth of the expert's experience, the firm decided to let them run the project from start to finish on their own. 

Increasing Performance via Supply Chain Optimization

The past three years can be categorized as the era of supply chain disruption. To offset the impact of the pandemic, many accelerated digital transformation initiatives to optimize performance and attain additional value. The same can be said for this CPG company. 

Looking to improve its operations to sustain the organization's health, the company decided to focus on identifying opportunities to lower spending and oversupply while increasing revenue. Ultimately this would require a supply chain and SKU performance assessment. 

To expedite the process, the company turned to Graphite to leverage an independent subject matter expert adept at S&OP process design and implementation. After reviewing the top three candidates its Account Executive (AE) presented, the company onboarded a former Mckinsey consultant with 15+ years of experience.   

Delivering Better Customer Experiences 

Understanding how to automate workflows and how customers move through the buying journey is key to designing the best customer experiences. So when this pharmaceutical company was looking to improve performance, it decided to do so by undergoing a current and future state end-to-end process mapping exercise. 

Because the company wanted to complete the initiative in eight weeks, finding a full-time hire or leveraging a consulting firm was out of the question. More importantly, they needed a subject matter expert that could quickly come in and complete the project. Since it lacked the expertise in-house, along with the identified time constraints, the company decided to explore Graphite's on-demand talent acquisition platform. 

The AE on its account presented the best four candidates out of 150 identified on the platform that best met its criteria. The selected expert? A seasoned independent consultant with 15+ years of experience in supply chain and digital transformations. 

Increasing Sales by Optimizing Inventory Management

There are multiple ways a company can choose to grow its business. For Transaxle, the premier remanufacturer of drivetrain components, the path for more growth was by expanding its geographic footprint by adding two large customers. 

But the company soon realized there's more to growth than just expanding into new areas. You also need to ensure that you have enough inventory on hand to supply these customers. That's the situation that Transaxle was trying to solve while also increasing sales. 

So the company turned to Graphite, onboarding a manufacturing and supply chain expert with over a decade of experience and well-versed in using data analytics to maximize supply chain performance. Together with the company's project manager, the expert reviewed component inventory assets and identified those that could be sold, discounted, returned, or disposed of. 

Engaging an Independent Operations Expert 

An optimized supply chain and operations model is no longer a nice to have; it's a must-have to thrive in today's microeconomic climate. Attaining this goal will require having the right technology and processes in place and the right workforce infrastructure to build and maintain it. 

With talent challenges expected to continue for the foreseeable future, ensuring you have a holistic talent strategy prepared to address issues as they arise will be critical. That's where leveraging an on-demand talent acquisition platform like Graphite comes in — helping you attain a flexible and more agile workforce. 

Ready to get started with an independent operations expert today? Connect with an Account Executive to learn more.