Supply chain strategy

When designing a supply chain, companies are faced with a variety of strategic decisions, such as whether to go with centralized or decentralized production and inventory management, or insourcing and outsourcing.

4flow supports businesses with supply chain strategy development. Customer requirements are optimally harmonized through supply chain design, which results in a decisive competitive advantage.

Mergers and acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are often an integral part of a successful growth strategy. Synergy potentials offer the opportunity to reduce a portion of the costs and make business more profitable. Yet, what sounds so simple proves complex and expensive to implement. Organizations and their processes must be brought together, their systems integrated, and their value chains unified.

4flow helps companies identify the synergy potentials of a merger. The focus here is on value chains and the supply chain, from both a physical and organizational perspective. 4flow also supports with the operational implementation afterwards.

Supply chain segmentation

Global supply chains, specificity, diversified product portfolios, digitization and disruptive innovations are creating more and more complexity in supply chains. Such complexity cannot be quelled with a "one-size-fits-all" approach. By segmenting the supply chain, however, the complexity can be mastered.

Through a tried-and-tested approach to supply chain segmentation, 4flow creates specific and cost-optimized processes while adapting to the market environment, risk profile and technology landscape. Our project experience shows that this can significantly reduce supply chain costs while increasing customer satisfaction.

Business development

4flow supports customers in the field of business development – drawing on many years of cross-disciplinary experience in logistics and supply chain management, 4flow applies its expertise across a broad portfolio of business areas as well as their requirements and cost structures. As a result, customers realize benefits including the establishment of new, sustainable customer groups and revenue streams, as well as the selection and implementation of new business areas for logistics service providers for the long term.

Supply chain organization

Supply chain organization is much more complex today than ever before. This is an advantage, since it offers even more potential for improving efficiency, agility and speed. Supply chain organization is becoming increasingly important for competitive success.

Strong growth, cost-cutting measures, and mergers and acquisitions are often reasons to adjust and change the supply chain organization. Increasing digitization also requires change to organizational structures for many businesses. Whatever the case may be, a well-implemented structure and process organization enables more efficiency, creates transparency and agility in processes, and equips businesses for future challenges.

Supply chain risk management

Structured supply chain risk management can create significant competitive advantages by aligning risks and mitigation strategies

Even though most recent global crises were unforeseeable, there are plenty of lessons to be learned from their origin, development and impact – lessons that can be used to strengthen future supply chains. Unexpected disruptions quickly increase supply chain costs, both directly and indirectly. This effect is intensified when businesses are not prepared for these supply chain disruptions. But many risks along the supply chain can be effectively and sustainably mitigated if strategies are continually aligned with current risk factors.

Make or buy

Concentrating on core competencies is a trend in all industries. But with outsourcing, the key is to keep an eye on and analyze implementation risks.

4flow knows the critical success factors of outsourcing and supports companies during the entire process. In doing so, 4flow achieves cost reductions of up to 30 to 40 percent for customers, improved performance, and an increase in transparency of inventories and transportation.

Customer-centric supply chain management

Shifting stakeholder demands force businesses to adjust operations. Customer-centric supply chain management enables new and constantly changing types of customer journeys.

In our fast-paced world, adaptation is fundamental for innovation and business growth. Across markets, industries and business models, a shift in stakeholder demands can be observed around the globe.