Supply chain visibility is the capacity to view and track items as they move through the supply chain, as well as the activities and operations that move them.
Business owners may gain insight into the status, location, and movement of products throughout the supply chain from start to finish with good SCV.
How increasing supply chain visibility can help your business
Increasing supply chain visibility is never a bad idea, regardless of how well you think you understand your supply chain operations. In fact, better SCV can assist many functions in the following ways.
Improves efficiency
It’s easy to spot inefficiencies and focus areas for improvement when you know precisely when, where, and how things move through the supply chain. The sooner a firm can identify bottlenecks and delays in its supply chain, the better.
Having real-time intelligence on your operations also increases supply chain agility and resiliency, because having eyes on critical activities allows you to react more proactively to new trends or unanticipated calamities.
Reduces costs by minimizing waste
If you’re unaware of your product flow and operational capacity in the supply chain, it’s simple to overspend, waste time, and miss chances for improvement.
By identifying and addressing inefficiencies in a business’s supply chain, you may help it save money by showing where simple changes might result in large savings.
You may utilize inventory visibility to find and liquidate deadstock, saving money on storage fees; you can also use inventory visibility to store items in the most efficient manner possible according on order destinations and transit times.
Real-time data = better decisions
Up-to-date supply chain software provides users with real-time data for essential operations along the supply chain. Companies may make more educated decisions with moment-to-moment knowledge.
For example, real-time inventory tracking allows businesses to have the most accurate inventory counts and to replenish when and how much to do so.
By monitoring shipping destinations in real time, a firm may increase its capacity to satisfy consumer demand.
The Challenges of increasing supply chain visibility
Many firms are unaware that they suffer from a lack of supply chain visibility. Here are some significant challenges that e-commerce businesses confront in their efforts to become SVCs.
COVID-19 uncertainties
Supply chain disruptions exacerbate this problem, making it increasingly difficult for businesses to obtain and maintain supply chain visibility. For the previous two years, the COVID-19 epidemic has wreaked havoc on the world’s infrastructure (with cities around the globe in a revolving cycle of locking down and reopening).
- The use of freight containers for long-distance shipping can result in delays and congestion at ports, which can lead to shortages and communication breakdowns.
- Shippers have been dealt a blow by rapid growth in ecommerce sales, which has slowed last-mile deliveries and caused tracking difficulties.
- COVID requirements vary by nation, and thus a firm’s visibility into foreign supply chain participants such as manufacturers, providers, and/or distribution partners varies.
- Staff working at warehouses are still reporting new cases of the virus, delaying the call-off procedure and necessitating that other team members be tested.
By 2022, when these obstacles and bottlenecks are combined, visibility in the most robust supply chains will be reduced by another seven weeks.
Siloed processes
When your company grows, maintaining the same level of communication that it had when it was smaller might be tough.
Although this is unavoidable in certain ways, having too little communication may lead your supply chain’s various phases to be compartmentalized, with each operation failing to communicate with other sections of the supply chain.
Companies that do not invest in supply chain technology to assist with operations as they grow have similar problems, making visibility even more difficult to achieve (and leaving them susceptible to a supply chain crisis).
Communication loss, therefore, poses a significant threat to supply chain visibility because cross-functional cooperation, coordination, and information sharing are all required for a coherent view of one’s supply chain.
Difficult to collect & access data across different sources
To have genuine supply chain visibility, critical data must not only be accessible but also interpreted in the proper light. To create a better picture of the entire supply chain, important data from diverse components of the supply chain must be consolidated into one location.
Although there are benefits to customizing each channel, it may be difficult for many ecommerce firms to manage them all effectively. The problem is that, as they expand and branch out into new channels, many ecommerce businesses end up using a variety of software, systems, and tools to handle each one. Unfortunately, none of these individual platforms provides an
Because of the complex and time-consuming procedure, it’s difficult to move information from one platform to another as a result of unintentional loss.
Using outdated supply chain technology
The supply chain management systems and tools that are currently in use may not always provide for maximum supply chain visibility.
Offrusta is a supply chain management software that allows you to handle your products efficiently and safely. Manage your supply chains and warehouse inventory.
In the most severe situation, outdated supply chain technology might genuinely cause your SCV to block updates, technical difficulties, and/or prevent you from accomplishing basic tasks.
Rather, businesses should look for newer technologies and platforms that provide immediate access to comprehensive data insights.