The impact of big data can be felt in many different industries. Supply chain managers know that in order to obtain valuable insights and visibility required for improving efficiency and productivity, they should be capable of capturing data in real time.
This need becomes more important because supply chains are growing more complex and bigger, and managers are focusing on improving service through enhanced inventory management and reverse logistics technology, decreased order-cycle times and operating costs, and enhanced flexibility to achieve lean operations.
But to achieve these goals, companies must take the following steps to improve how their current analytics solutions work.
Begin with BI initiatives
In the event that your company just can’t handle the shift to analytics and big data right now, begin with business intelligence (BI) initiatives. It’s usually easier to obtain more buy-in into data-driven analytics and decision-making when managers could integrate them into their existing processes such as utilizing asset monitoring solutions and mobile devices combined with a customized inventory control solution.
Implement smarter logistics
Going lean essentially means improving supply chains analytics through implementing smarter logistics. Companies have to improve basic reporting and metrics for accessing data that would enhance the visibility of gain and performance into every supply chain operation.
Using advanced control metrics that are analytics-driven provides managers the ability to track crucial incidents in real time and also allow the monitoring of KPIs or key performance indicators at different touch points.
Integrating predictive analytics with these metrics deliver ROI faster and saves more money because managers will have the knowledge required for reducing costs and supply chain responsiveness while improving and preserving customer satisfaction.
Highlight prescriptive and predictive analytics
Companies find that obtaining prescriptive and predictive insights offers them the data they require for enhancing customer satisfaction and operations. It’s with prescriptive and predictive analytics that decisions and results could be even more data-driven.
Put simply, advanced data analytics are most proficient at evaluating real-time data for predicting future situations and prescribing the most appropriate profitable and complex decisions.
Get rid of data silos
Take note that the analytics you can access are only as accurate as the information you provide them. This means that if your data is stored in many different siloed repositories, user spreadsheets and databases, the cloud, enterprise applications, data lakes, and data warehouses, you do not see the overall picture since the data your need is too segmented to achieve complete visibility.
That being said, employing integrated software solutions is immensely vital to unify data and obtain true visibility. Your software solution should be capable of delivering real-time and accurate data monitoring from various sources to provide the analytics and insights you require to improve your operations.
Put simply, for your company to achieve lean operations and remain competitive, supply chain management should utilize analytics and data to obtain maximum visibility into their various operations. To do this, you need to begin with business intelligence initiatives, employ smarter logistics, get rid of data silos, and highlight prescriptive and predictive analytics.
