Main Questions to Assess When Choosing Your Supply Chain Visibility Software

1/3/22

Supply chain disruptions have been a polemic in many industries. Many companies have reported that the disruptions were responsible for the decrease in revenues. In Asian countries, the problems in the supply chain have affected the share price by around 8% on average.

Most of these companies are sounding the same root cause for why these issues could happen in their supply chain: a lack of visibility.

With the advancement of technology, reaching true supply chain visibility shouldn’t be difficult for all businesses. However, some of them are still comfortable with the conventional way of monitoring their supply chains. They are using the phone calls and email to keep updated on the status of their supply chain.

While these are convenient for them, they reduce efficiency. The paper-based process leads to less agility and disruptions in the supply chain. Since the operational costs are high, it will also hinder the business's ability to expand and grow.

It is a good idea to incorporate supply chain mobility software into your business process to overcome supply chain disruptions. But it will only work if you choose the right supply chain visibility solutions provider. Choosing the wrong provider will negatively affect your company’s operation.

Agistix is one of the best software providers that you will want to reach out to. The company uses holistic approaches to tailor the best solution that matches their clients' needs and requirements.

Here are the important questions to ask when choosing your supply chain visibility software.

Does the SCV software provider offer interoperability?

To monitor all the sources, it is important to have interoperability in your SCV solution. It is the key to a successful end-to-end supply chain.

You probably know that the sophisticated IoT devices out there can really help your company in a way to get detailed information such as pressure, vibration detection, temperature, depth, and so on. However, they are not tied to the tracking and tracing capabilities.

In the transportation, there are many vendors who have their own dorms. When it comes to the global supply chains, you’d expect the different transportation modes, such as shipping lines, airlines, forwarders, terminals, and so on, to work together. Each vendor has their own system. And most often, they have no interoperability to link to your particular supply chain.

Here is where the real challenge begins. With such scattered data, you will need a reliable SCV solution that can retrieve them all and send the data directly to your TMS or ERP system. As long as you are able to fetch the data from them, you can achieve the real SCV. Agistix can make it happen for you. Their solution can help you to consolidate the scattered data directly from all of those vendors. By getting accurate data from them, you will have full coverage of transportation and geo-location.

Is the data trustworthy?

It will be useless if you only receive good data visualization but not neutral and reliable. To provide you with real insights, you will want to expect the best data quality. The data streams into your system are still raw. They need to be processed before being used. In this case, your SCV solution must be able to consolidate the various data from multiple sources to create an isolated platform that is accurate and trustworthy.

It is important to attain neutral data. Neutral data tends to be more objective, leading to the most informative decisions that will bring positive results in the business process. The software solution that you get must be independent from the third-party logistics providers. The visibility will be clear and responsible.

How would the solutions provider provide the alerting system and service platform?

You can have such a great system and business models, but there are some factors out there that are beyond your control. No matter the size of the scale, the supply chains are always at risk of natural disasters, labor problems, logistics issues, geo-political conditions, changes in regulations, cyber attacks, pirates, pandemics, and many other factors.

While some problems can be prevented earlier, businesses must also be ready for the worst-case scenario. Sometimes, we don’t have much choice but to mitigate the risks. To overcome the various challenges, the companies will need to adopt a reliable tech stack to centralize the information so that they can make quick responses.

End-to-end supply chain visibility systems come with a single platform where you and your team are able to track everything from the early stages to the final end. But more importantly, you will be able to do it in real time.

A good SCV software should allow you to access this type of data at any time and from any location. The notification and alerts should be automatic so that the operators will be able to take the necessary actions and make faster, more informed decisions to minimize the disruptions. In the supply chain, we often encounter unplanned errors and delays. However, dependable SCV software can be our best ally in dealing with problems.

Is there any intelligent analysis in the particular solution?

If you are like other businesses, you will surely know the importance of predictive analysis in your business practice. Business intelligence is a very crucial aspect since it has direct connections to the more efficient supply chain processes.

As the project owner, you will need to read the reports more often. Therefore, you won’t achieve anything if the reports are not digestible. Good SCV software can provide customized and tailored reports that will help you identify the best and worst performances in your supply chain. What does it mean, then?

With this trusted information, you can effectively find the rooms for improvement. Therefore, make a smart decision to remove the hindrances and optimize the working strategies that will benefit your company.

The reliable solution must have both long-lasting potential and long-term value.

Besides the reliable solution itself, the incredible team of experts in Agistix will also help you to discover the potential for improvement, increase ROI, and cost savings in business operations.