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What Is A Decentralized Supply Chain, and How Can It Improve Your Company?

PartRunner
3 min readFeb 10, 2021

By PartRunner

Although every company has a supply chain, each is complex and spans many levels of production and exchange relationships. Many companies prefer to use a centralized supply chain model, concentrating all their production and profits around the same location. While this model may seem convenient at first, research shows it can result in lower profits and harm customer satisfaction.

Why Do Centralized Logistics Harm Customer Satisfaction?

According to an academic paper by Lee and Billington, “Centralized control means that decisions on how much and when to produce are made centrally, based on material and demand status of the entire system.” When decisions are made in regards to the whole company, and all of the business units within it, issues that only affect a few sectors might be overlooked. However, moving to a decentralized plan; where organizations consider each part individually, as opposed to the overall condition, they can more effectively identify and solve issues. Switching management from an individual to team-lead model will allow for 100% of management attention to be given to each part, instead of dividing it over the whole. This is especially imperative for companies dealing with supplying customers every day.

Male and Female Bosses in a City Setting

How Can You Shift to a Decentralized Model?

Experts from the MIT Sloan School of Management suggest that large companies should consider regional management as they begin to shift away from centralization. Dividing work among regional offices allows for more local knowledge to make its way from each region back to company headquarters. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has been anything but lucky, it can be advantageous in helping management reorganize company responsibility without needing to physically relocate workers. Additionally, consider adding partners, like PartRunner, into operations who work independently while contributing to your overall goals.

What is PartRunner?

PartRunner is a modern parts delivery service that is extremely valuable to companies seeking decentralized supply chains. Specializing in last-mile deliveries, ordering from PartRunner is like getting a same-day Amazon shipment; except instead of any old package, partrunners deliver essential equipment for companies in the trades, construction and service industries.

How Can PartRunner Help Achieve Your Goals?

If your organization is facing issues with delivery times, or simply doesn’t want to take on extra costs of having workers leave their sites to retrieve an extra piece of equipment, let PartRunner step in. At PartRunner, we know the value of customer service, and our same-day shipments pledge to arrive in 2 hours or less. Incorporating PartRunner into your construction or trades business will allow your employees to stay on site while we take care of parts transportation. Grow your teams, improve efficiency in management, and take care of your customers by working with our helpful drivers at PartRunner.

PartRunner Employee Delivering Packages

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