Delays are universally disliked. Nobody likes delays in anything. Unfortunately, some delays are inevitable, and we have to learn to live with them.

However, that cannot be said for commerce and international trade. Any delay in a global supply chain can result in disaster for a business. These delays lead to disruption in production, labor issues, and, of course, angry clients who can’t buy what they need.

Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to deal with delays or at least mitigate their damage. Let’s check them out and see how you can keep your business safe. 

How To Reduce Delivery Delays

Here’s how you can stay on top of your global sourcing endeavors and reduce delays to a minimum.

1. Check Your Suppliers

Many times, delays are caused not in the middle of supply chains but at their source. Your suppliers are responsible for sending your goods on time. If they make even a small delay, it will compound across the entire supply chain and become quite big.

Some good ways to deal with this kind of delay are:

• Vet your supplier
• Have multiple suppliers

Vetting your supplier means that you scope them out and check how good their client satisfaction rate is. You can do that by reading reviews about them and asking others in your field who have interacted with them. If there are a considerable number of red flags, you ditch them and look for someone else.

Multiple suppliers are great for dealing with supplier delays. One of them can be late, two of them can be late, but it is highly unlikely that they are all late. So you will almost always have some inventory on hand that you can sell instantly if you have multiple suppliers.

1. Track Deliveries To Get a Handle on Delays and Choke Points

Most delays in global sourcing occur in the middle of the supply chain. When goods have to cross borders, they have to pass various kinds of inspections and checks. 

These take time and result in significant delays. However, they are mandatory, so nothing can be done to remove them from the equation. So, what can you do about them?

The only thing you can do is to take note of these delays and plan around them. If you track your shipments with a package tracker, you will find that customs delays tend to take the same amount of time. 

So, if you are smart, you can order your shipments such that they all arrive one after the other, so you have a constant stock of inventory. This approach can only be effective if you have multiple suppliers and utilize a shipment tracking service to track your shipments.

1. Invest In Inventory Management

Inventory management is the art of maintaining your stock such that you are never (or rarely) out of inventory. If you are in an industry with high stock turnover, you need expert inventory management.

Good inventory management helps reduce the impact of delays on your business. Even if your shipments get stuck or waylaid, you can rest easy knowing that you have backup stock to sell and not worry about running out.

Here’s how you can learn how much stock to hold to avoid getting disrupted by delays

• Analyze your production/sales to see how fast you run out of stock. 
• Analyze how fast or slow your suppliers can deliver new stock.
• Maintain a buffer where you have some safety stock left, even if your suppliers are working at their slowest speeds.

Maintaining a safety stock can incur holding costs, but holding costs are ultimately smaller than the loss in profits due to production disruption.

1. Have Flexible Agreements and Contracts 

Flexible agreements and contracts with your suppliers can help you reduce delays quite easily. 

It is common knowledge that businesses and production don’t maintain the same amount of work throughout the year. There are seasons for everything, and that means there is a peak season and an off-season.

In the peak season, you may want your suppliers to provide more goods faster, while in the off-season, it would be the opposite. This helps you to save holding costs in the off-season and maintain productivity/sales.

This is only possible if you have flexible contracts with your suppliers. If you have a good relationship with your supplier, you can create a flexible contract. In times of high demand, such a contract can help you mitigate delays by enabling the following.

• Expedited transport. If you need inventory quickly, you can ask your supplier to send a smaller but faster shipment to meet your immediate requirements. At the same time, the rest of the shipment comes through the usual lines.
• Higher Priority. It is possible to negotiate a higher priority for your business during peak season if you have a flexible contract. This means that you get goods before other clients and you don’t face delays.

A good relationship with your supplier can go a long way in dealing with delays and other hiccups.

1. Always Have Customs Documentation Ready 

Some delays are caused by a lack of proper documentation. When dealing with international supply chains, it is obvious that you will deal with the customs offices of multiple nations.

Each has its own rules and regulations. So you need to bring yourself up to speed and follow their rules so that your shipments don’t get detained. 

Many of these documents your supplier will know and provide, but others you will have to provide yourself. These can include anything from a license to import to inspection certificates and even bills of lading. 

If you don’t provide these documents, here’s what can happen.

• Your goods will be temporarily seized until you provide the documents. This incurs massive holding costs and obviously results in delays.
• In case you are breaking some rules or missing critical documentation, your goods can be seized permanently. That will create a huge setback in your delivery schedule. You will have to wait for another delivery, and all the seized goods will incur a massive loss.

So, be prudent about documentation.

Conclusion 

So, there you have it, some important tips on mitigating supply chain delays in global sourcing. These tips amount to being prudent, having all the documentation and licenses in place, and maintaining a good relationship with your suppliers.

If you can do all that, you will be able to deal with supply chain delays in a timely manner.