It’s widely appreciated that Big data plays an instrumental role in improving supply chain management and is a player that cannot get ignored. However… What is it? How can you use it? And perhaps of most interest to you, what are the benefits of doing so?
Supply chains globally generate overwhelming reams of endless data that continually flood in boundlessly from an expanse of channels, and this level of activity can often become a daunting aspect of your business, particularly within today’s highly competitive environment. However, it doesn’t need to be this way! By understanding more about this vast quantity of data, whether structured or unstructured, you can better establish the trends and patterns that can help you realize a decisive advantage over the competition by boosting efficiencies throughout your company’s supply chain.
What is Big Data?
Put succinctly; ‘Big Data is the significant amount of dynamic and disparate volumes of information created by people, tools, and machines worldwide.’
Analyze Data For Better Decision Making
By pairing these vast amounts of data with the latest in analytics technology, Big Data boosts visibility, transparency, traceability, and accountability and gets turned into powerful real time insights into the entire supply chain.
Big Data Removes The Guesswork
Businesses globally are stepping into a future whereby the technology we marveled at when we were younger as a ‘Hollywood film concept’ has become a reality. Numerous companies are utilizing the power of the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning to provide the predictive capabilities required to avoid downtime and ensure operations continue to run smoothly and efficiently to meet with customer demand.
With Big Data solutions analyzing data such as that relating to:
- Customer trends
- Natural disasters and weather patterns
- Transportation failures or delays
- Production/manufacturing problems
- Raw material sourcing
supply chain managers can make better predictions and proactively develop and leverage strategies that optimize their processes and enable more responsive supply chains.
Your supply chain analytics capabilities must get scaled with data in real time, so you must enable the ‘4 C’s‘ – The key features of supply chain analytics:
According to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) “Supply chain management encompasses the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing and procurement, conversion, and all logistics management activities. Importantly, it also includes coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, third-party service providers, and customers. In essence, supply chain management integrates supply and demand management within and across companies.”
Therefore, leveraging the cloud and digital capabilities, such as those enabled by Gravity to support the interoperability, sharing, exchange, and utilization of information between all stakeholders, is fundamental to businesses seeking efficient processes, value add, and competitive advantage.
