It would be an understatement to say that the supply chain world is an unpredictable one. One moment you could be planning your budget, inventory acquisition, client onboarding and even consider adding franchisees with everything looking up and you are firmly on top. The next moment you know, something like a war or a virus evolves half a world away from us and disrupts your plans to no end.
From see to saw, the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic were felt in various ways such as:
Reduced productivity: Labor shortage, equipment shortage, health of critical suppliers and employees led to disruptions in production levels in supply chains.
Demand surges and drops: Generally, businesses have some margin of error when it comes to assessing new levels of demand. However, due to insufficient data about consumer demand, they may overstock inventories and struggle to get necessary components or raw materials.
Raw material shortages: Take, for example, auto manufacturers, who have been facing chip shortage, leading to production cuts in the recent past. Also, non-power sector consumers, including aluminum, steel, cement, chemical, paper etc, have been facing acute shortage of coal.
Now, while it is true that most supply chains around the globe are in the same boat (70% of supply chain decision-makers said that COVID-19 is creating the biggest impact on the supply chain currently), the most alarming, and perhaps inexcusable fact is this: 22.6% of businesses were unaware of supply chain incidents that may have caused disruptions in their operations.
The significance of this fact is further amplified when one considers that 16.7% of businesses say that supply chain disruptions led to a severe loss in revenue, while 9.9% of them say disruptions caused severe impacts in terms of loss of regular customers.
Around the corner is another major supply-side disruption looming due to the Ukraine crisis; as 374,000 businesses worldwide rely on Russian suppliers—90% of these businesses are based in the U.S. About 241,000 businesses rely on Ukrainian suppliers and 93% are based in the U.S., according to Dun & Bradstreet.
Having said that, supply chain visibility and intelligence is the key term here. It is what separates the good from the great, and is essential towards staying a few steps ahead of potential disruptions such as pandemics, government regulation changes, labor union strikes, shipping route jams, etc.
Supply chain visibility is the capability to monitor individual components, assemblies and deliverable products. This visibility is required throughout the product’s journey, as it moves from supplier to manufacturer to the end user. If supply chains do not monitor and react to the data emerging from their operations, they simply cannot forecast demand and overcome inventory shortages, or rise through bottlenecks in operations and oversee products right till the delivery.
‘Inexcusable’ we said?
Most definitely, as the solution to countering and even staying ahead of supply chain disruptions is a simple one. A proven visibility platform. With it, you can not only identify, prioritize, and respond to supply chain challenges before they occur, but also receive recommendations towards ideal scenarios in case of any disruptions.
Visibility platforms leverage the power of emerging technologies to identify volume, velocity, and value-pattern disruptions in your supply chain transactions. Moreover, the platform then sends alerts in the event of disruptions to typical workflows, so that you can respond appropriately. Plus you can also attain full lifecycle visibility, and view all relevant transactions from a user-friendly single dashboard.
Here, you may ask ‘what is the point of real-time monitoring of data if you can’t derive meaningful insights from it?’ And you would be absolutely right.
That is why visibility platforms can harness the power of analytics for better decision making.
A visibility platform with built-in data analytics tools can display and analyze data from various sources in the supply chain. Such a synergy can help you gain full visibility into EDI data across business domains such as customer relations, procurement, logistics, accounts receivable and payable, e-commerce and order management. Therefore, you can analyze the effectiveness of crisis intervention strategies.
Except in complex, chaotic circumstances of war, by combining the power of emerging tech, graphical analysis and supply chain analytics, supply chain managers can utilize data from external factors such as changing market regulations, ideal customer/vendor preferences or even weather disruptions to predict demand and increase revenue.
Of course, the supply-chain game is all about numbers, and so we’ve compiled the most relevant ones for you:
- Enhanced visibility can help companies reduce their shipping costs by 30%
- Almost 55.6% of organizations are now using technology to help analyze and report on supply chain disruptions
- 61% of manufacturing executives report decreased costs, and 53% report increased revenues as a direct result of introducing emerging tech in the supply chain
Hence, it is essential for supply chain enterprises to identify the critical mistakes that derail operations, and to help them do just that and a lot more is the visibility platform from Monitor Pro.
With Monitor Pro Supply Chain Leaders can
Get alerts in the event of disruptions to typical workflows.
Sync data from and between legacy systems such as pre-existing ERP solutions and CRM tools to modern technologies such as API platforms, thereby attaining a much higher state of visibility.
Identify volume, velocity, and value-pattern disruptions in your supply chain transactions.
Predict consumer demand and increase margins.
Reduce manual labor training costs, as its incredible user interface makes it possible for administrators to master the tool without extensive retraining costs as well.
Overcome the need to install additional infrastructure — thanks to its compatibility with existing legacy systems.
Finally, it must be said that supply chain executives have to stay on their toes more than ever, but the benefits of Monitor Pro are immense and can help you take full control of your supply chain operations. As we see, the post pandemic era is bringing about many more unprecedented changes, and using Monitor Pro’s visibility solution can help you better prepare for unpredictable events.
To know more about Monitor Pro, we urge you to schedule a meeting with us. Let’s discuss and get you started on the path to build strategic supply chain resilience.
