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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.

Transportation management is a key component of supply chain optimization, especially as global networks become increasingly broad and complex, involving multiple origins, destinations and modes of transport. Today’s transportation management system (TMS) is highly integrated and data-driven to meet challenges head-on and provide greater control and insight across the network - from manufacturers and distributors to shippers and logistics service providers.

Here are some of the key ways the solution has developed to provide greater intelligence and optimization across the multi-party ecosystem, improving flexibility, agility, and resiliency.

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.

Skim the latest supply chain news and you’ll find headlines spanning disruptions, backlogs, shipping delays, soaring prices, and changing consumer habits. “Supply chain complexity” is a popular search term as businesses explore technologies that will enable them to better manage risk and uncertainty. We’ve discussed how supply chain visibility is the foundation to building a successful technology strategy – but what is the ultimate aim?

Certainly, the “perfect order” – on time and in full (OTIF) delivery at the lowest possible cost – is the gold standard from a business perspective. From a technological perspective, the systems that will best help us reach those aims are intelligent cloud platforms with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL) capabilities.