The possibilities for larger corporate enterprises to enhance their overall supply chain management efforts with smart data, mobile and geospatial solutions are nearly limitless.
Today, any organization that needs to effectively distribute products on a global or national scale can streamline these efforts in ways that tremendously enhance efficiencies and provide significant cost-savings.
For example, these organizations can leverage both private (order information, supplier locations, etc.) and public data (weather, road incidents, traffic, etc.), while fusing trucking and route data to best predict and mitigate disruptions. By tapping into past usage data, as well as data from open sources, it is possible to marry all of this information into a unique dashboard that provides a 360-degree view for potential opportunities and issues.
The key to this data fusion is the visualization component. By combining this data and connecting it with a tool that can provide a strong visualization of its interaction (something like Google Maps), we gain the advantage of viewing data we already have in new ways. Further, we start to see that we can move from a position of reactivity to a position of proactivity and begin to actually take preventive action to stop major issues from impacting operations before they happen.
In the past, major enterprises would have to pour through massive piles of data to develop the same actionable insights for best managing the supply chain. This process was highly cumbersome and required a large, dedicated staff for compiling and analyzing the data.
With today’s smart data solutions, it is possible to come up with the right supply chain intelligence in near real-time. Much like solutions that have been honed and tested for the military, these offerings bring the same clarity that is needed for driving decisions on the battlefield.
We are entering into a new era of commercial data management where the most cutting-edge solutions are more simplified and allow for quicker response times, which leads to better decisions that drive overall organizational success.
And, in today’s resource-stretched times, we all need the right solutions that are both cost-effective and allow any organization to achieve significant competitive advantage.
