Companies face critical daily challenges regarding communication and efficiency in their supply chain. Locally and globally, adoption of sustainable solutions to improve the health of supply chain functions is helping to overcome these challenges.
For many, this means increased real-time visibility of all transportation, logistics and supply chain processes. In fact, according to an eft study on real-time visibility, 97 percent of supply chain executives cite it as critically important to their business. The problem – nearly all of those executives report relying on manual processes for information exchange between partners, potentially stifling visibility through a lack of automation and presenting a significant gap between executive needs and reality.
Nearly half of respondents reported at least one manual step being required in half of their overall processes. Another 71 percent said more than a quarter of their processes did so.
This lack of automation presents unique challenges, with limited visibility into the end-to-end supply chain process at the top of the list. Other challenges include an inability to handle business growth and the associated transaction volume and inefficiencies when acquiring and aggregating information from internal and external sources.
Rising customer expectations further spotlight a need for increased visibility. With a buyer’s ability to remain constantly connected and consumer shopping experiences shaping perceptions, real-time visibility is no longer optional. Customers expect quick and transparent delivery, and real-time updates delivered through cloud-based software empower businesses to meet these expectations.
In fact, cloud technologies can close the gaps between reality and evolving consumer demands. Executives should leverage real-time data to drive insights that spur revenue growth, get products to market faster and generate new business models.
A transportation management system in the cloud creates visibility from start to finish, with all elements of the shipping process in a single platform. With cloud-based TMS requiring a smaller initial investment and typically lower overall costs than on-premise solutions, many are capitalizing by implementing a real-time flow of information and enabling key decision makers to quickly check status and address problems.
Through advanced planning and forecasting, cloud solutions answer the call for accurate budget forecasts and cost reduction, identifying weak spots and creating virtual red flags for optimization opportunities. Reducing training time and manual workloads, cloud-TMS eliminates many daily manual operational tasks such as registering information and building reports to improve the team’s efficiency.
By implementing certain cloud-bases solutions, companies significantly increase visibility in current supply chain operations. Cloud-based technologies answer the call, and those who embrace them can reduce net landed cost of goods as much as 30 percent.
Lisa Henthorn is a vice president at Eyefreight. Contact Lisa at [email protected].
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Rise of Automated, Real-time Visibility, February 2015 – Haley Garner, Research Director, eft – [email protected]
