Best practices in managing integrated supply chains
‘Most companies are struggling with the complexity of their multi-tiered networks of global suppliers, customers, supply chain services providers and other intermediaries’ has been revealed in a new study, “Integrated Demand-Supply Networks: Five Steps to Gaining Visibility and Control,” announced by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company.
“Our study shows that companies understand the new reality of today’s business environment and are prioritizing multi-enterprise visibility and process collaboration to regain control over their extended demand and supply networks,” says Viktoriya Sadlovska, research analyst who co-authored the report.
Best practices in managing integrated supply chains, revealed from the survey of 126 companies, include:
- Ability to accurately forecast demand across multiple channels and tiers,
- Supply chain agility (e.g. ability to re-route in-transit shipments),
- Clearly defined executive sponsor or champion for supply chain collaboration,
- Effective integration of trading partner data into internal processes,
- Effective supply chain partner collaboration in sales and operations planning (S&OP), customer demand forecasting, inventory management and invoice reconciliation,
- Ability to track supply chain costs at line-item level at all stages in the supply chain,
- Standardized integration methods with suppliers/ customers/ other supply chain partners,
- Supply chain visibility, integration and S&OP software technology deployment.
Nari Viswanathan, VP and Principal Analyst, who co-authored the report, concludes: “Supply chain complexity has gradually led companies to lose visibility and control over their network-wide supply chain operations and performance metrics. This study finds that visibility and responsiveness have become the necessary ingredients for success in today’s multi-tiered supply-demand networks.”
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