Supply chains across the world are going through one of the most volatile periods owing to multiple factors. From disruptive technological advancements and changing consumer demands to global lockdowns and geopolitical turmoil, supply chains are being tested to the maximum with many businesses even failing to tide the storm.
Though the worst seemingly may be over, testing times are still ahead. Modern supply chains need to be resilient, agile, scalable, and transparent. So the question is, are you supply chain ready? Can your business adapt and overcome the challenges and demands of modern supply chain needs?
The best way to check supply chain readiness and assess your current state is through integrated supply chain management solutions that are data-centric.
Your integrated supply chain planning should revolve around risk resiliency and building agility. There’s a huge stress on building a supply chain that is responsive and conducive to change. It should adapt, evolve, and improve, and to do this, you need visibility and transparency that only data can provide.
Data collection and analysis can help you see what the major problem areas are, which ones need to be addressed first, and how you can start improving. You can get a significant improvement of 15% to 20% in your ROI just through this. But is your organisation equipped to collect and analyse this vast amount of data? Can you dedicate many resources to this task? Do you have software that can give visibility to the findings and help you act upon them?
For example: If you can spot the upcoming trends and upsurges regarding your product’s demand, you can empower your just-in-time fulfilment to manufacture and supply the right amount of product to your customers, lowering costs and increasing profits.
When you have a definite strategy in place, all the decisions and actions you take will be centred around this strategy. Your path becomes clear when you know what you are heading towards. The next logical step is to define key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics will let you know whether you are moving according to your set strategy.
Finally, set targets for your KPIs. When you have an exact number, you know how close or how far you have come to achieving your strategic goals. It will help you make critical adjustments. Your supply chain and decision-making will be on the same page. This step is critical for you to know how to utilise your data.
You know the strategies, now it's time to map out the processes of how to get there. Using data insights, you can now define and drive the recognised KPIs that are beneficial to your strategy. Next, you map those processes to figure out the right indicators and you can also assign ownership of these indicators to your team members in the integrated supply chain system. In this stage, data insights can also indicate redundancies in the process and opportunities to improve that will increase resiliency. Act upon these indicators and create a cycle of continuous improvement.
You need to figure out how many times the data needs to be collected. The frequency is important because sometimes, it is not necessary to pull data continuously. But it should also depend on the role of the one accessing the data. For example, the sales team might want an hourly report owing to ongoing sales and marketing campaigns. So, the level and role of team members pulling the data matters. But is the data clean? Are there duplications? Are there errors owing to manual data collection? Is the data source trustworthy? The final step in data collection is cleaning the data to increase hygiene. Your supply chain readiness cannot be built with compromised data.
At this stage, data will give you complete visibility of your supply chain. You can put plans and contingencies in place for every issue that might arise. Whenever there’s a break in supply chain workflow or there is some problem, your data can point out what are the root causes of that particular problem. You can have a plan in place to deploy whenever the issue arises. You don’t need to wait and assess what needs to be done and waste precious time. The data is always right about the problem and solution and you can create an efficient, agile system to tackle issues. The data can also show you when your supply chain needs upgrades and updates to continue on the path of growth and improvement.
Though you’d like to think that your supply chain is unified, the truth is that your supply chain is actually a network made up of distributors, suppliers, logistics partners, and warehousing and store management. A lot of the problems arise because there is no cohesiveness between all these integral actors in the supply chain. There is no uniting platform or technology between them for increased collaboration and visibility across the supply chain. Enter, brring!
We are supply chain experts dedicated to bringing the best of data-driven integrated supply chain management solutions that will make you supply chain ready! We have comprehensive tools and technologies that you can use to empower your employees, associates, distributors, and suppliers to get them to function as a single cohesive unit. All the complex and tedious supply chain readiness actions stated above can be done with a single click. You get complete solutions that will transform your supply chain into a profit centre.
brring’s unified technology platform lets you take advantage of real-time insights. For example, you get the entire temperature visibility with our temperature probes during your product storage and shipping. You can continuously monitor the data, negating the need for you to go and check the product temperatures at the time of delivery. That’s not all, our solutions even give insights based on reliable data on geographic consumption trends, allowing you to upscale or descale your product’s supply to save costs and increase profits.
brring’s data readiness is all you need to build your supply chain readiness. Partner with us today to get the brring edge!
