Supply chain coordination can be like herding cats in the best of times. With so many deadlines, demands, and dependencies to juggle, effective communication with your trading partners is essential to ensuring you meet commitments on-time and in-full.
Despite this fact, many enterprises continue to use a mish-mash of phone calls, emails, and Excel spreadsheets to manage their supply chain planning and execution processes. Leading practitioners know that given the speed of today’s market, continuing to rely on this myriad of disparate channels is a recipe for costly errors and delays, and can erode customer service levels and fulfillment rates.
The number one strategy for improving resilience and agility is to deepen collaborative relationships with key customers and suppliers.
Gartner Inc., The Journey to Effective Supplier Collaboration
It’s time to hang up the phone and sync up with your extended supplier networks in real time.
Here are three important ways a cloud-based, multi-enterprise platform can save you time, headaches, and budget when it comes to supply chain management and synchronization.
1. Reduce planning errors and delays
Much of the time, planning errors and delays occur due to data latency issues or miscommunication, which in turn are often caused by asynchronous communication methods such as phone calls and emails. Further, asynchronous communication risks causing mix-ups in order statuses, as well as redundant updates and unnecessary actions during the planning process.
The simple fact is that partners aren’t working together off a single source of truth. Lagging response times due to inefficient communication channels can, in turn, lead to delays when attempting to pivot in response to sudden order or demand changes.
2. Improve order responsiveness and accuracy
Supply chain practitioners are no strangers to the Bullwhip Effect. When supply chain networks consist of hundreds of partners, even minor delays can escalate into severe issues as the problem travels further downstream.
Investments in better forecasting can only mitigate these issues by so much; the farther delays travel through the value chain, the more difficult it becomes to respond to them, due to the escalating severity and its impact on buffer times.
Instead, consider the impact of enabling real-time data connectivity amongst the partners in a supply chain network so that all parties can respond quickly to disruptions and unforeseen events. When all partners operate from accurate, timely order data, the enhanced level of visibility can enable much faster responsiveness throughout the supply chain network.
In addition, the improved data visibility and accuracy shared by supply chain partners can be leveraged for the benefit of all, maximizing capacity, minimizing inventory levels, and reducing lead times.
3. Collaborate more effectively to beat the competition
Every enterprise is looking to maximize its efficiency and agility in this highly competitive market. Many supply chain networks, however, continue to struggle with orchestrating operations beyond their four walls, especially when so many of their manufacturing and packaging operations are outsourced.
The true competitive advantage of the future lies within supply ecosystems that have invested in building out network capabilities for visibility, collaboration, and orchestration, which will pave the path for them to reap rewards of increased speed, reduced cost, improved quality, and stronger sustainability outcomes.
By 2026, more than 50% of large organizations will compete as collaborative digital ecosystems rather than discrete firms. The ecosystem has the potential to become the competitive entity of the future, as it can effectively leverage the capabilities of all its members.
Simon Bailey, Gartner, CDOTrends, March 29, 2022.
Further, using a multi-enterprise platform to digitally orchestrate your supply chain network can yield the following benefits:
Reduced Costs:
- Reduce material waste and obsolescence through more meaningful and timely collaboration
- Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of S&OE / S&OP through collaboration with partners from planning through execution
- Improve working capital by optimizing utilization of capacity and resources
Improved Service:
- Provide greater on-demand visibility to partners, eliminate painful QBRs through real-time sharing of KPIs and metrics
- Increase loyalty with automation and integration with partner enterprise systems
Increased Revenue:
- Expand revenue streams with materials management services
- Ensure profitability of new services with systematic control and reporting
Further, using a multi-enterprise platform to digitally orchestrate your supply chain network can yield the following benefits:
Reduced Costs:
- Reduce material waste and obsolescence through more meaningful and timely collaboration
- Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of S&OE / S&OP through collaboration with partners from planning through execution
- Improve working capital by optimizing utilization of capacity and resources
Improved Service:
- Provide greater on-demand visibility to partners, eliminate painful QBRs through real-time sharing of KPIs and metrics
- Increase loyalty with automation and integration with partner enterprise systems
Increased Revenue:
- Expand revenue streams with materials management services
- Ensure profitability of new services with systematic control and reporting
Learn more about Nulogy’s Supplier Collaboration Solution
True supply chain collaboration is the competitive advantage of the future. Isn’t it time to free yourself from games of phone tag and email chains that scroll forever
Nulogy’s multi-enterprise platform is the only solution designed to improve visibility and collaboration between FMCG manufacturers, co-packers, raw materials producers, packaging manufacturers and their supply base. Nulogy’s platform helps organizations drive agility and improvement across business processes, manage costs, enhance on-shelf availability, optimize operational excellence and efficiency, and mitigate carrying cost and material waste.
Learn more about Nulogy’s Supplier Collaboration Solution and how it can enable true collaboration throughout your supply chain network.
