Major disruptions have caught supply chains and logistics ecosystems off-guard. Since time immemorial, logistics leaders have been dealing with shipment delays or demand spikes, and all these disruptions have amplified with border closures, sick workers, factory shutdowns, and economic tension. Organizations, in turn, scramble to overhaul processes to manage logistics upheavals.
Enterprises functioning in supply chains have suffered as a result. They’ve experienced rising costs, product delays, dissatisfied customers, and ultimately loss of business.
The increasing and unending supply chain strain are not inescapable. Enterprises throughout the supply chain systems are searching for ways to navigate through chaos and disruption. By gaining access to aggregated data channels, organizations can pivot quickly and make smart decisions without difficulty. Often, this becomes a possibility when leaders incorporate a powerful data integration platform into their existing ones.
Supply Chain Digitalization
The shift happening in digital supply chains ecosystems isn’t novel. Freight, as well as logistics firms, have been drifting away from antiquated analog processes for the better part of a decade. It’s almost impossible to work without a digital Transportation Management System (TMS) or chain-of-custody software. A multitude of companies is even moving into blockchain decentralized freight management and tracking.
Digitalization has clear benefits:
- Transparency and accountability
- Agility and adaptability
- Reduction in loss and liability
- Improved, real-time logistics
It’s evident that digitalization proffers multiple benefits. Considering all this, digital has become the new standard. Couple it with the disruptions chaos generated, and it’s obvious for companies to have embraced supply chain digitalization. In short, there’s an urgent need for enterprises to have a data integration strategy in place to help them make informed decisions.
Supply Chain Digitalization with Integration
Technological solutions help supply chains digitize its every critical facet. While this is an important step toward garnering valuable insights, integrating supply chains is even more essential. Data integration enables organizations take segmented logistics data out of isolated silos, enterprises have a hard time adjusting to external forces that are impacting the supply chain ecosystems.
In every domestic supply chain, a thousand factors play a role – including carrier choice, freight schedule, availability of inventory, weather, and so on. Without the presence of a good data integration platform, it’s difficult for companies to piece together snippets of data to make the best decisions about where, when, how, and at what cost to move their goods. Disintegrated systems produce friction that can ultimately turn supply chains difficult to do business with. This is where a modern data integration platform can be of great value. Data integration systems can transform the way supply chains do business with their trading partners. They enable users move, manage, and govern data to unlock powerful insights that help organizations provide delightful customer experiences.
Data integration platforms support supply chain data management by enabling tangible insights. Rather than cobbling data from different sources, in different formats, into workflows, companies can rely on these solutions to allow free-flowing data. By integrating data in a unified database, organizations can extract the value to make decisions without difficulty. More so, these technological platforms also give the power to adapt and scale when supply chains become more complex.
Disruptions will always be there. Companies must be able to reduce the impact of the disruption in order to compete and beat the competition. To do this effectively, the data integration platform plays a cardinal role indeed.