If you have worked in business for any length of time, you are bound to have heard of the importance of ‘not re-inventing the wheel’; not trying to do redesign something which has already been achieved. In some respects there is a small amount of wisdom in the proverb, but if your business is not trying something new, how does it differ from the competition? What makes your supply chain any better? What can you offer your customers that they cannot get elsewhere?

Albert Einstein summed up the dilemma perfectly, ‘Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’

When assessing our supply chain management systems, there are undoubtedly lessons that can be learned from the experiences of similar organisation or even our competitors. But in the unwritten rulebook of business process analysis, nowhere does it state that just because something worked for ABC Ltd, it will work for your company. If you blindly replicate the implementations of other businesses, you may gain the same advantages they did, but you will also repeat the same mistakes they did.

At the end of the process you are in no better or worse position than when you started because you are in exactly the same place competitively as when you started.

Consequently the delivery of supplies and services must be new and innovative or no one benefits in the long term. Neither your business, its partners nor its customers will be any better off if your supply chain management system does not reinvent the wheel.

The global financial downturn has forced many businesses to think more creatively about their futures giving credence to yet another old adage – ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’. Your business and its processes need to change, so why not be inventive? Why not break the rules and reinvent the wheel?

About Celtrino

Celtrino is a well-established provider of hosted supply chain management and electronic invoicing services to businesses across Europe and the rest of the world from its headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. Building upon more than 200 years’ experience in supply chain automation, Celtrino staff develop and supply services designed to improve the workflow, efficiency and profitability of their 1200+
customers.
Celtrino uses industry standard cloud architecture to underpin its hosted e-business solutions, allowing worldwide clients to benefit and perform B2B transactions globally, irrespective of local limitations. Regardless of company size, Celtrino’s clients are able to access enterprise-level functionality, providing them with all the tools required to compete actively on the global stage.