According to a global supply chain survey profiled by Supply Management in SupplyChainBrain, full supply chain visibility rose from companies' sixth most important strategic priority in 2015 to third in 2017. Yet only 6% of firms said they had achieved this aim.
The survey, which canvassed 623 supply chain professionals across 17 countries, found:
- 57% of respondents considered their supply chain to be a competitive advantage that would enable the development of their company.
- 7 in 10 firms considered their supply chain to be either very or extremely complex.
- Almost three quarters used five different transportation modes in their supply chain, with the two most popular being road and air freight.
- 8 in 10 firms were using between one and three KPIs to assess supply chain performance.
BDP’s visibility capabilities make global logistics easier to manage and yield true upstream and downstream visibility at every stage.
Take, for example, an electronics manufacturer who wanted to improve management of its air, ocean and final-stage trucking transportation from suppliers in Asia to its European production facility.
The company had to obtain shipment information through various means - an inefficient use of staff's time and resources for often incomplete or inconsistent data.
As a result of poor - and often non-existent - visibility, they could see when their shipments were booked, if they were in transit or the estimated time of arrival.
