5 SMEs talk about their participation in the eSCalade program

I'd recommend it for an SME that has a clear project for structuring its supply chain, and that has the support of its management to build something. You shouldn't get involved if you don't clearly know where you want to go, or if you don't have the support, backing and resources.

To put it very simply, I'd say it's for an SME looking for visibility over its supply chain. If the company is at a stage where it's trying to find its way, this program allows it to take a step back and define its major objectives, while at the same time making them very concrete. It's a good way to gain vision and clarity.

It's really a program for gaining perspective, even if the company already has audits (as in the automotive industry)! Because you discover the problems of others who are in other sectors, you make them your own and you question yourself. Initially, I was worried that all the participants would be from the automotive sector, and would therefore come across the same issues (e.g. random forecasts and orders), but I realized that, despite the different backgrounds, many of the problems were similar.

I'd recommend it above all for companies that want structure in their logistics approach, by providing a "backbone" that enables them to put their finger on the right issues very quickly, and to know how to deal with them right through to the end, with support throughout the process.

I think that the greatest impact will be on people who are in the process of industrializing or increasing their volume, and who want to extend their supply chain capabilities to ISO resource, for example, or at any rate by putting in place procedures and tools, if they are already in place, but which enable all these processes to be tidied up a little, I think that this is really where the program is most relevant.

In any case, I know that in the start-up ecosystem, I think it's really a tool that can be very useful in bridging the "valley of death" gap. When you've finished R&D, you try to produce and launch something on the market. You've got the concept, you've got the market, but you've got to start producing, and that's where a lot of things fall apart, unfortunately.

one of the prerogatives is to be equipped with at least an ERP, and therefore to have sufficient digital maturity to fully exploit the potential of the program and the tools offered, because a net requirement calculation in Excel is not viable over time.

It's also important for everyone to describe their motivations for following the program, as this provides a roadmap for the rest of the process and avoids any drift.

Filling in the pre-training questionnaire, first on your own and then with your management (N+1), helps align expectations and define a clear training guideline.

already have a real project approachto have something concrete to put into the machine during the sessions, rather than a purely theoretical idea, for a more effective application.

These 6 months have given meaning to our action plan. There were some ideas there, but we didn't really know where to start, so the fact that we were able to give a structure to our plan, I think, unblocked certain issues.

And on a more personal note, it's made me feel a bit more at ease. Yes, we're an SME, we're not up to date on everything, but we realize that in some areas things are fine. And there's this strong notion of arbitration and adaptation according to the business, which has really reduced the pressure to be "perfect" or to have to put in place all the great processes and good ways of doing things.

In concrete terms, we've created a supply chain division, we've already moved people around and now we've got the scheduling, logistics and sales divisions together. We're aiming for smoother communication and mutual support.

And what's really nice is the "before/after" between each day of face-to-face training. That's the real plus of the training, having the two-hour inter-sessional sessions with Laurent (one of the trainers) every three weeks, allows us to dive back into the subject and, above all, to move forward.

It enabled me to consolidate the action plan we had for the supply chain. Today, we're an old start-up, so there are a lot of things to do, to put in place, and it allows us to get feedback from everyone, to see what we're prioritizing so that we can already have a first draft of the supply chain, to have concrete actions right away.

One major contribution has been to put existing tools (often poorly mastered) back at the heart of processes, so that they can be better appropriated for the benefit of the company and the supply chain. In that sense, I think we've really succeeded.