As businesses across the globe grapple with protracted supply chain issues, one potential answer companies have been turning towards is control tower solutions. Pandemic-related...

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Conventional thinking may have led some businesses to center their supply chain strategy around obtaining the most profitable cost, even when doing so meant assuming additional risk or lower-quality service. A supply chain that’s optimized for price alone, however, doesn’t account for today’s market demands or the complexity that’s involved in multi-enterprise, multi-tier, multi-mode, and multi-direction order flows. Within a network, there are potentially dozens of different touch points and stakeholders, all of which may have distinct systems and processes in place. Without end-to-end supply chain visibility, information becomes siloed, creating unnecessary and corrosive segmentation.

The pandemic helped expose vulnerabilities in the global supply chain ecosystem, causing shortages across sectors, from medical supplies to automobiles. The recent acceleration of supply disruptions made international headlines, but the trajectory that led us here started years before COVID-19. According to survey information gathered by McKinsey & Company, “supply chain disruptions cost the average organization 45% of one year’s profits over the course of a decade,” historical context that helps demonstrate persistent challenges to supply chain planning and logistics. The same survey also showed almost 80% of respondents said they “need to improve, and to invest in digital planning to increase supply chain visibility.”

Why are executives so concerned about supply chain visibility, specifically? The answer varies, depending on who you ask, their definition of “end-to-end visibility,” and the nature of their business.

Supply chain management has become increasingly complex and involves more coordination among network partners. Control tower technology was introduced to provide greater visibility and more efficient collaboration within the evolving ecosystem. Over time, the technology has adapted from a narrow solution that spanned transportation management to a more comprehensive and holistic capability to fit the growing demand for wider system integration, efficiency, intelligence, and speed. Here are a few of the most exciting and critical supply chain control tower trends in 2022 that help build flexibility, agility, and resilience.

Various polls taken by supply chain stakeholders from 2020 to the present moment – including our own – all point to a similar reality. Visibility is still a significant concern for organizations and is absolutely fundamental to a high performing supply chain. This comes as no surprise as disruption continues to affect the cost-to-serve on razor thin margins, and lack of timely insight impacts operational efficiency, OTIF delivery, and customer satisfaction.

The time to act is now. As is choosing a solution that offers the breadth and depth of supply chain visibility needed to help mitigate the impacts of disruption, recover revenues, and outperform competitors.

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