Corporates have fixed resources and although they obviously pay attention to elements of financial supply-chain management, such as working capital or risk management, the holistic idea of financial supply chain management has yet to be fully embraced. Instead, CFOs are more concerned with problems associated with the physical supply chain and, in many cases, have made significant improvements to its operation by investing in supply-chain management teams that work with different parts of the organization, and third-party supply partners. The financial supply-chain requires a similar collaborative effort to bring finance, treasury and accounts payable into cross-functional teams, which work with a company’s external partners.
This will not necessarily be easy.
Many of the structural changes that have taken place in the global market have accentuated the confrontational aspects of business: cutting costs has been about buyers and sellers fighting over every last cent. However, although that combative culture of cost-cutting is not in any danger of dying out, strategic sourcing and supplier relationship management techniques mean that the emphasis has moved from pushing costs down the chain towards taking costs out of the overall supply chain.
The financial supply chain
What is financial supply-chain management?
Why is FSCM important?
Electronic transactions
Supply chain management
Implementation & emerging best practice