The e-commerce landscape today looks vastly different from what it was even a few years ago. Modern technology and innovative thinking have revolutionized the sector introducing new opportunities from mobile commerce and omnichannel retail to services that specialize in making last mile deliveries of any product, including automobiles.
Supply chain excellence is no longer an afterthought as services and technologies advance and the competition heats up, Supply chain excellence is a competitive advantage that helps businesses succeed. Why? Because customer expectations have changed. Simply offering a useful product at a reasonable price is no longer enough to satisfy today’s demanding customer, customers also want their orders to arrive quickly, predictably, and in a personalized manner.
While there are many advantages of e-commerce, the success of any e-commerce initiative is dependent on a connected supply chain and supply chain automation, in short, supply chain excellence. Let us explore the ways e-commerce businesses can leverage supply chain excellence to stay ahead of the competition and boost their bottom line.
The State of the Customer
Today’s shoppers are more connected, and informed, and have higher expectations than ever before, and with the aid of modern technologies they can easily search for products, compare prices, and get answers to their questions.
Greater expectations mean increased pressure to perform – and that’s where supply chain management makes an enormous impact. Supply chains that are merely adequate cannot understand or respond to customer expectations, which makes them unable to pivot, adjust, and overcome disruption of any scale. Supply chain excellence requires a strategy that responds to changing customer trends, can report repurchases or returns and can react to customer satisfaction, keeping one step ahead of competitors.
The Keys to Supply Chain Excellence
Achieving supply chain excellence requires more than just supply chain management – supply chain excellence takes thoughtful planning and execution. Supply chain excellence means a supply chain that is transparent and predictable. Supply chain excellence means a connected supply chain and supply chain automation that is advanced, integrated, thoughtful, and most importantly, easy to use.
Here are a few points to consider when pursuing excellence in your e-commerce supply chain.
1. Automation and Scalability
The supply chain automation market is a booming one, and for good reason. Supply chain management in e-commerce requires a level of sophistication and flexibility not seen in other industries. Automating processes allows a business to speed up operations, scale efficiently, and increase velocity. According to McKinsey research, 74% of companies plan to invest in supply planning technology to increase visibility and reduce manual errors.
The best way to automate your supply chain operations is to invest in software and systems that are designed to serve the e-commerce industry. While supply chain management tools differ depending on capabilities, available services, and provider, they typically include capabilities for supply chain automation for the supply (Buy Side) or the demand (Sell Side), sometimes both.
- Sales Order Processing (Sell Side)
- Purchase Order Processing (Buy Side)
- Inventory Management
- 3rd Party Distribution Management
- Warehouse and fulfillment automation
- Logistics Integration
2. Analytics and Business Intelligence
Today more than ever, companies are embracing Analytics and Business Intelligence and applying advanced analytics to Supply chain management. Analytics and Business Intelligence enables supply chain excellence and fosters a better understanding of customer behavior. Analytics and Business Intelligence impacts supply chain management in a positive manner by allowing companies to make more intelligent decisions about inventory, forecasting, and delivery.
Analytics and Business Intelligence delivers powerful insights into:
- Cycle times (the time it takes to fulfill orders)
- Capacity utilization (how much inventory is available for fulfillment)
- Demand forecasting (anticipating customer demand and stocking accordingly)
- Risk management (identifying potential risks and mitigating them)
PartnerLinQ leverages Analytics and Business Intelligence to deliver predictive analytics to clients enabling clients to optimize their supply chain. PartnerLinQ delivers structured and unstructured data to core systems and systemically normalizes and stores transaction data so that Supply chain management teams can leverage this data in near real time to enhance connected supply chains and connected supply chains are better able use supply chain automation to predict customer behavior.
3. Strong Partner Collaboration
One of the biggest challenges in supply chain management is managing complex trading partner relationships across multi-enterprise networks. When a business grows the business complexities also grow. Expanding a single source supply chain to one that relies on multiple suppliers and vendors increases the load on Supply chain management teams, often the business grows exponentially.
Poorly managed collaborations lead to issues like duplicate orders, missed shipments, incorrect billing, and lengthy delays. To make sure your customers remain satisfied, and you do not lose business due to inefficiencies, it is important to have a comprehensive solution for managing partnerships.
A leading employeeowned supplierof baked goods in the US was looking for a way manage their growing partner network that included mills, warehouses, and distributors, a network that grew organically over many, many years. They implemented an end-to-end solution with the bandwidth to securely manage incoming and outgoing transactions; the client could also access powerful analytics and reporting to gain deeper insights into their operations.
What’s Next?
The journey to supply chain excellence is not just about technology; it’s about understanding the client, their challenges and opportunities, it’s about identifying opportunities for improvement and delivering supply chain automation that makes sense, it’s about finding the right partner and the right solutions and it’s about sensible solutions that are advanced, integrated, thoughtful and most importantly, easy to use.
At PartnerLinQ, we know what it means to unlock the power of data with modern technologies, we know what it takes to build connected supply chains for maximum efficiency, and we know what supply chain excellence looks like and when it comes to control, visibility, and transparency across your supply chain, We make it easy… We keep it simple…and it’s all in one place.
Request a demo today to transform your business with supply chain excellence.
