Supply chain visibility plays a significant role in seamless and efficient online retail or eCommerce order fulfillment. In this blog post, we will explore supply chain visibility trends and how to utilize them optimally.
Tracking your goods and products while they are in transit gives you a clear picture of your inventory and other related activities. This is called supply chain visibility, as you are aware of the status of your products during every step of the supply chain. If you have clarity on the status of every step of the process, you can overcome several obstacles. For example, the quality of customer service improves, cost control measures are more effective, and better inventory management.
Goals of Supply Chain Visibility
The main goal of supply chain visibility is to know ahead of the workings of the supply chain of your product. This reduces many risks and removes some potential obstacles. The next step is to collect pertinent data available through supply chain visibility and analyze them to make your supply chain seamless and improve the efficiency of the process overall. You can endeavor to regularly analyze the data to continuously improve the process and make it as seamless as possible.
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One of the supply chain visibility goals is to create a better workflow. You require a robust workflow to make informed decisions on time. Your employees must be versatile to contribute across the many layers of the supply chain. A versatile employee can connect the dots effectively, predict potential issues, and provide efficient solutions to mitigate them. All of these result in a much smoother and streamlined process.
Key Challenges of Supply Chain Visibility
Like any other process in the world, improving supply chain visibility might come with its fair share of challenges. The resolution is to keep tweaking and continuously changing the process to optimize it and make it as efficient as possible.
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Let us individually look at some key challenges of improving supply chain visibility.
Information Sharing
If there is no open communication between the tiers of your supply chain, data and information is not shared. This lack of sharing leads to miscommunication and can lead to challenges. Whenever you streamline supply chain visibility, you must have a system in place to communicate openly between every tier of your supply chain. This system is shared across all layers, and data and information are uploaded regularly and visible to every relevant person. Open communication ensures smooth data and information sharing.
Supply Chain Interruptions
If there is no or less visibility of the inbound supply, companies can lose control and not be able to manage their supply chain effectively. It is challenging to track and manage all aspects of the supply chain effectively. This lack of visibility may lead to potential interruptions. You might have multiple inventory management levels, increasing the time and hassle.
Analyze Available Data in Bulk
If you are unclear about what data is required for the company, it is challenging to sift through the bulk of data available and find what is pertinent. The supply chain visibility will not have an optimum effect if you are unclear about the important information and irrelevant data. You would require in-depth knowledge of your supply chain levels to sieve this data successfully.
Benefits of Supply Chain Visibility
The major benefits of enhancing the visibility of the supply chain are related to a better workflow and more profits. This better visibility also provides avenues and opportunities to cut customer costs and reduce overall risks.
Let’s delve deep into some of the major benefits of supply chain visibility one by one.
Alleviate Disruptions
When you improve the visibility of your supply chain, you know where there are chances of disruptions. By being able to predict these disruptions, you will be ready with solutions. Armed with strong communication and effective data analysis, you will be able to remove these potential disruptions and have a seamless process as a result.
Encourage Agility
When you improve the supply chain visibility, it enables you to be agile and more flexible. You can address all the potential supply chain issues and make changes to streamline the process better. This eventually leads to better productivity in spite of different challenging conditions.
Improve Speed
When you enhance the visibility of your supply chain, you always have access to current and relevant data. Consequently, all the decisions that you make are data-driven and on time. When you can predict the potential disruptions, you can make decisions to alleviate them faster.
Cater to Customer Demands
In the current customer-centric world, the supply chain also must cater to customer demands. You must be able to shift and evolve your supply chain to meet those demands. You can hire consultants who will be able to streamline your process effectively to ensure that they can cater to customer demands.
Drive Results Based on Data
When you improve and streamline the visibility of the supply chain, all decisions you make are data driven. Consequently, the results are also data centric. If you can sieve through and extract the correct data, it will help all the aspects of supply chain management and eventually lead to the overall success of your company.
Conclusion:
To get better visibility in supply chain management, you must be aware of every aspect of the supply chain. Your employees must have skills in multiple layers of the supply chain. The more versatile, skilled, efficient, and proactive employees you have across the layers, the better will be the visibility of your supply chain. Improving technology is a great way to reduce time and improve productivity.
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Ensure all the data and resources are available across all the layers for people who require them. Ensure you train your employees on these latest technologies and equip them better to streamline the processes effectively. Instead of implementing rigid boundaries, encourage your employees to be more versatile and gather insights from their experience as to how to make the process better.
About XPDEL:
XPDEL helps eCommerce brands accelerate their growth, empowering them with multi-channel fulfillment, whether shipping directly to consumers, delivering to businesses, or selling through retail stores. We are founded and operated by veterans with experience from Amazon, FedEx, UPS, JDA, Walmart, Target, and other leading companies in eCommerce and Retail. Guided by these experts, we provide customer experiences that help you grow your business.