Improve N-Tier Supplier Visibility
Slowing down the supply chain disruption pace is not likely to happen anytime soon.
Many clever companies are planning to strengthen their response-ability. The most effective strategy to avoid these disruptions is to work directly with the suppliers to mitigate and monitor the n-tier supplier risk.
The procurement team's relationship between the existing supply base and the gatekeeper role for newly onboard suppliers makes them the natural owners of this strategy. Another benefit of this approach is that it allows them to ensure distributed buyers’ and budget owners’ accessibility to relevant information for disruption spotting and adopt a suitable response strategy.
For achieving the goal of becoming future-ready, excelling in the “disrupt disruption" policy is crucial. The future-ready procurement teams are agile, predictive, intelligent and connected and can react to unplanned affairs more distinctively and quickly. It helps companies devise a competitive advantage and build greater resilience to uncertain business environments.
To effectively implement this action, companies should invest in their supplier data management potential, increasing their visibility into the supply chain and building out processes for continuous data monitoring.
Effective implementation of this strategy will require companies to invest more in supplier data management capabilities, aiming at increased supply chain visibility and plotting out measures to ensure continuous data monitoring.
Significance of Real-Time Data
As with most business activities these days, staying abreast of developments in the supply chain is also a data-dependent task for the most part. Because of physical distances, time zone differences and language barriers, it is essential to create a data repository that is not only comprehensive but one in which the information stored is relevant and current.
The master data of a company, which contains necessary data about suppliers, invoices, inventory, and customer orders, should infuse trust in the company's decision-makers, empowering them to make confident and quick decisions that widen their business opportunities. They should act as a source of pride for anyone who accesses it.
The whole process is easier said than done. Most of the techniques sabotage the data quality and trust, restraining the disruption mitigation abilities of the company. These practices may include:
1. Confusing users with non-integrated and incomplete “ sources of truth” (by business unit, system or function) having multiple origins.
2. Requiring manual updating of systems and records with varying circumstances.
3. Providing momentary quick fixes that give the data an integrated appearance when it is not.
4. Adopting email as the primary location for order-related communications instead of designated systems.
Adopting Decision-Making Analytical Tools
The more comprehensive the data is, the more sophistication it requires for leverage. Efficient analytical tools allow users to run reports, access data, build dashboards and notably act as a bridge between simple and complex.
Complete data means nothing if the decision-makers perceive it as “too difficult to use”. Similarly, fulfilled and intact data is valueless if it fails to divulge its use to the user. Therefore, it is necessary that analytical tools have easy access and intuitive use and should be kept close by those who are assigned the task of monitoring or managing third-party risk and compliance.
Fabricating and Maintaining Full Supply Chain Cycle View
Supply chains are customisable ecosystems that have vast and complex infrastructures. The upstream view is that most companies work with thousands of suppliers having logistical networks, business partners and supply chains. The downstream sight shows how customer relationships and logistics providers are equally complex and interrelated. The significance of securing and maintaining the bidirectional vision of the supply chain has become a present-day essential.
Continuous maintenance and set-up investment are vital for achieving this state, minding that it is a powerful weapon against supply chain disruption. With ready access to this information, procurement can easily understand all the direct and indirect complications of a specific or systemic risk, its pre-qualifies alternatives, the cost of disruption and both monetary and customer impact.
It is about time companies accept that even the most sophisticated supply chain management strategy adopted eludes prediction at some events. It is an essential alternative for being future-ready. Improving the supply chain visibility and approach to supplier data management is the key to achieving disruption capability and future readiness.
Improve N-Tier Supplier Visibility
Posted on, 11/29/2022
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