Why Shippers Love Supply Chain Visibility?

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why shippers love supply chain visibility

Who doesn’t prefer to keep a complete track of whatever your business is into? As it is absolutely important to keep a record of your manufacturing, operations and a lot of other attributes of a business to keep the success mantra keep going. Among all the factors, having a keen eye focused on the delivery of the end product to the distributors and the customers to ensure quantifiable attributes of your business. This is what Supply Chain Visibility benefits refer to. It is the capability of the manufacturer to track every part of his product in transit to end-users. The goal is simple; strengthening of the supply chain by providing user-relevant and real-time data to the manufacturers.


Let’s get an understanding of what is supply chain visibility

What is Supply Chain Visibility?

To go with a simple definition, Supply Chain Visibility (SCV) refers to the ability to trace or track a product, order, and shipment from the source until its final destination. This brought an ideal opportunity to the logistics world, which was welcomed by almost every business. 

What is supply chain visibility

As technology leaped in with advancements, SCV evidently improved the statistics earlier used to track the product shipment. With time, all the products were labeled and traced through every stage of logistics.  There were certain concerns regarding SCV but the perks were enough to ignore the Supply Chain Visibility challenges. All the businesses were now able to keep a look at the overall process and with ace and evolution of e-commerce logistics, tracing overseas shipments and deliveries was much easier now. 

Supply Chain Visibility is today spreading faster than anything else among businesses who’s success rate depends on their happy customers and knowing the trends their customers are following. Most of the eCommerce giants are keen to keep a good look at every part of their supply chain right from inventory management to the feedback given by their customers. 

As the inner working attributes started evolving, micromanagement of operations and logistics started getting easier. Real-time data and advanced solutions had put everything on the table with enhanced standards of communication, and instant access to necessary information.

As complexities for business leaders rose with the increasing business market; even across the globe, business leaders needed to focus on the network of global import and export, along with distribution in the local market.  Supply Chain Visibility benefits really brought a powerful tool to understand and keep a track of all the tiers of the supply network.

Here are the top reasons for considering Supply Chain Visibility benefits as an advanced attribute.

5 reasons to consider supply chain visibility

Ease of managing the complexities of the supply chain network

Businesses today operate globally and follow one of several models of supply chain management or logistics. The network becomes denser as the business market expands and apparently prone to losing track of the supply and demand of the order. Supply Chain Visibility allows the business to keep the entire network under supervision. With the advancement of technology and micromanagement of every product at every distribution center, leaders and managers are now able to keep a track of the supplier network, understand the demand of the market, apply analytical forecasting to meet future demands and a lot more.  This develops a symbiotic relationship between a fluent communication, effective body 

So far at present technology has supported businesses of all sizes and niche; but to enhance the potential of supply chain potential across a global platform, a must suggested way is the inception of the cloud technology.  Some theories suggest that supply chain visibility is not enough for most businesses and why they need to be increased.

Keeping compliance with the regulatory demands

One of the purposes served by a Service Chain Visibility is to keep track of the constantly changing landscape of government policies and regulatory demands. Businesses that are operating overseas or across multiple countries need to comply with the rules and regulations of the host country in order to sustain and develop in the foreign market. Keeping a close track of the recent modifications or demands for all the locations where the products are being shipped or manufactured benefits in planning ahead and in quick decision making. It comes in handy while going parallel with the dozens of trade agreements and the changing government tariffs. 

Supply Chain Visibility has resolved several issues that businesses faced regarding compliance failures, stagnant shipments and getting barred due to compliance failure.  That being said, organizations are now able to deal with complex shipments across several foreign lands but with a known control over the regulatory demands. 

Facilitates predictive analytics and inventory forecasting. 

No business can run without orders for their products. The demand of the product decides the long run of the business and its success rate. Thus it becomes very important for businesses with several products and operating in distributed foreign markets to keep a track of each product supply chain. This supports the decision-makers in understanding the current state of their inventory along with predicts the demand for their products in the coming months.  With real-time and instant data of all the products that are being shipped from the source to its destination, it becomes easier to calculate and analyze the most demanded products by the brand. 

So with the acute data of every product, companies can now track the efficiency of their supplier, develop different inventory models that suit the foreign market typically and also dissect information among several levels within the organization. 

Meeting the demands of the customers. 

Companies operating remotely while distributing products across several markets and sometimes even across borders or overseas, finds it difficult to reach out to every customer they sell. This makes them impaired to understand the needs of the customers and address their concerns effectively. This further creates a gap between the seller and the buyers. 

Supply Chain Visibility allows the business owners to micro-manage their business attributes and therefore keep an eye on their customer’s satisfaction points. There are several ways of gaining insights from the customers regarding the quality of the product, quality of service, and other product-related concerns. SCV efficiently allows the leaders to see and collect the ways things are going with the end-users of their products. 

Say goodbye to supply and demand risks

With proper integration of Supply Chain Visibility, several risks involved in the supply chain are mitigated at the optimal levels. With proper knowledge and information about the complete supply chain network, predicting risk and therefore planning ways to mitigate them becomes easy. As more and more data is collected regarding each product and shipment, more information can be derived that latter adds on evading the logistics costs, potential delay in time and estimated risks associated with damage of the product. 

Challenges with supply chain visibility 

Despite the range of benefits it has, we can no moment ignore the challenges of Supply Chain Visibility. There are certain roadblocks that might hamper fluent management and tracking of every product. Conducting the loopholes in building an effective network of traceability and traceability of the products from its source to its destination makes it ineffective for some businesses. At times there are risks that the product may or may not be available at the locations, that demand immediate shipment from the source. This further creates supply and transportation problems. Furthermore, without proper integration of technology and tracking of any shipment, it is even difficult to manage,

Alongside, even with a single loophole in the entire balanced systems, it is possible to dismantle the entire transaction system. These are often evident while global shipments that involve freights and cargos of large scale products that were shipped to the international market. The solution to supply chain visibility challenges lies with better collaboration, responsiveness, optimization, and connectivity. 

Future Scope of SCV

Companies, especially the members of the logistics industry are the ones who are majorly impacted by the inception and advancement of Supply Chain Visibility benefits. This applies the same for the companies with in-house logistics team and distribution centers. It is estimated to be fruitful with every logistics company to develop its software solution to track and trace the products in transit through them. This would imply the implementation of the SCV software based on the products the logistics team is dealing with. Apart from this, new and advanced technology like big data, cloud, predictive analytics, demand planners makes the process more liquid, less complex and easier to manage.

With real usefulness and working as a graded weapon for every business, Supply Chain Visibility brings most when collaborated, well incepted and accepted at every stage of a supply chain network. 

The concept doesn’t only work best for fast-moving consumer goods ut applies to a range of other products and commodity manufacturing. Tracking the shipment that has just left the first stage of the supply chain and maintaining real-time data of the product during the transit keeps the shareholders equipped with data that will contribute to a better decision making process. Though the benefits of the model don’t date back to a decade. Supply Chain Visibility came much later since the beginning of the 21st century when businesses started understanding the value of managing their supply chain and since the inception of the digital marketplace.

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