Strategies to Mitigate Supply Chain Disruption: Investing in Supply Chain Visibility Software

In the previous installment of our blog series that focuses on strategies to help mitigate disruptions in your supply chain, we explored the critical strategy of creating redundancy. As we persist in our quest towards supply chain resilience, our focus now shifts to the strategic investment in supply chain visibility software.

Join us as we navigate the transformative potential of advanced technology, which equips organizations with heightened visibility, enhanced agility, and refined decision-making capabilities in supply chain management. Together, we'll uncover how these advancements can bring continuity and reduce supply chain risk amidst potential disruptions.

What is Supply Chain Visibility Software?

Supply Chain Visibility (SCV) software provides end-to-end tracking of raw materials, parts, and finished goods from manufacturing to the “last mile”. This software improves transparency in complex supply chain networks, which helps increase product and service quality. SCV is enabled by supply chain management technology, which provides real-time data about logistics and other aspects of the supply chain. This data helps companies navigate inventory shortages, avoid bottlenecks, meet compliance directives, and track products through to delivery. But simply having this data isn’t enough.

Bringing together data from multiple sources into one platform allows for a consistent ‘single version of truth’ for all parties across the supply chain. This ensures that logistics, planning, and customer service teams can access necessary information and coordinate actions effectively, while enabling a unified view of inventory levels, shipment statuses, and possible bottlenecks. This detailed view allows you to make informed decisions based on the context at hand, helping you manage supply chain risks and effectively take advantage of opportunities.

Yet the real strength of supply chain visibility goes beyond keeping an eye on things. Tools such as critical zone and process monitoring enable organizations to manage by exception, for which timely alerts are received as shipments pass through chokepoints or are taking longer than expected when transshipping. 

Furthermore, by utilizing data-driven analytics and scenario planning, you can predict disruptions beforehand, allowing you to proactively plan and implement strategies to address supply chain vulnerability. This kind of foresight can make all the difference between falling down during challenging times or maintaining operational flexibility in a supply chain crisis.

Infor Nexus: A Game Changer in Supply Chain Management

Infor Nexus, formerly known as GT Nexus, is a leading global supply chain management platform that helps organizations disrupt supply chain inefficiency. It connects over 85,000 brands, retailers, manufacturers, suppliers, logistics providers, and banks on a single digital supply chain network to seamlessly orchestrate global processes from source to delivery and payment.

Infor Nexus offers a range of solutions designed to optimize supply chain operations and provide the visibility needed to help mitigate supply chain risks:

Supply Chain Control Tower: Enables end-to-end visibility and orchestration of global supply chains. Improves agility and responsiveness by delivering high-fidelity visibility, AI-driven insights and decision support with the ability to collaborate and execute actions with network partners.

Supply Chain Visibility: Unlocks real-time insights to the status of orders, shipments and items across your entire supply chain, from order to delivery.  Machine-learning based predictive ETAs to port and final destination are included to better plan downstream activities and provide customers with more accurate delivery dates.

Global Transportation Management: Includes multi-leg, multi-mode transportation solutions including sourcing, planning, execution, visibility and freight pay and audit. Infor Nexus Transportation Management provides closed-loop transportation capabilities that synchronizes systems and partners across modes to provide visibility to shipments and freight spend, which seamlessly orchestrates and optimizes global transportation while helping to mitigate supply chain risk.

Supplier Collaboration and Management: Allows for greater visibility and agility, reduced cycle times, assures supply and improves management of supplier ESG programs through digital supplier engagement.

Procure to Payment Automation: Provides streamlined processes and enables earlier cashflow and inventory visibility by automating time-consuming procure to payment processes. Order confirmation and collaboration provides earlier visibility for a supplier’s ability to meet request dates, while electronic ASNs and invoices with faster approvals provide earlier visibility to inventory and cashflow.

Supply Chain Financing: Supply chains are only as strong as their weakest link.  Providing suppliers access to integrated supply chain financing ensures suppliers have needed capital to smoothly run operations, assuring supply.

How Infor Nexus Helps Global Supply Chains Operations

In today's changing business environment, supply chain challenges are inevitable. In fact, it's almost expected that supply chain disruptions will happen. Regardless, whether due to disasters or conflicts around the world, unexpected events can throw a wrench into the most carefully planned operations. While no tool can completely shield you from these surprises, investing in solutions like Infor Nexus for visibility into your entire supply chain can significantly improve your ability to react and adjust to any supply chain crisis.

Infor Nexus streamlines operations to eliminate inefficiencies and waste, while gaining data-driven insights and optimizing the flow of capital for an improved, agile, sustainable, and resilient supply chain. It provides real-time, end-to-end visibility of orders, shipments, and inventory. With Infor Nexus, companies can monitor the real-time status of orders, shipments, and inventory, have more confidence in ETAs with machine learning algorithms based on Infor Nexus global network data, and reduce dwell, excess costs, and inventory with proactive alerts.

Learn more about how Kuehne+Nagel, an Infor customer, has significantly benefited from its long-standing partnership with Infor Nexus since 2013, leveraging the cutting-edge capabilities of Infor Nexus software to enhance its global logistics visibility and control. This strategic collaboration has enabled Kuehne+Nagel to adapt seamlessly to evolving customer requirements and complexities, resulting in notable achievements such as increased customer wins by over 50%, a threefold increase in transaction volumes, and successful expansion into new markets.

Another valuable tool included in Infor’s suite of solutions to support supply chain resilience is Infor Distribution software. Leveraged by thousands of distributors, the cloud-based solution features advanced analytics that provide real-time visibility into supply chain operations, enabling businesses to manage supply chain risks and proactively respond to disruptions.

Stay tuned for the final segment in our Strategies to Mitigate Supply Chain Disruptions blog series. We will explore the important aspects of managing inventory, effectively mapping out your supply chain, and assessing supply chain risks—all crucial elements for building a strong and future-ready supply chain strategy.

Learn more about other mitigation strategies previously covered in our blog series, including Nearshoring as Mitigation Strategy and Creating Redundancy in Your Supply Chain.