Connected Supply ChainXT
Customer-Centric Supply Chain Management
Moving from Product-Centric Supply Chains to Customer-Centric Supply Chains requires an organizational, process, solution and cultural paradigm shift. Being able to provide a real-time view of inventory to customers with full access to the global product catalog, optimizing stock levels at each node in the Supply Chain (including 3rd party locations) to maximize service levels whilst minimizing waste, ensuring order fulfillment meets all SLAs with proactive updates & actions throughout, and injecting the voice of the customer into the product design lifecycle – all these are achievable within the Customer-Centric Supply Chain.
It starts by ensuring that the Supply Chain is modeled in it is entirety, with constraints & risks being identified and mitigated, processes optimized, and technology solutions deployed to improve visibility & efficiency whilst eliminating silos.
Then, by looking at the customer journeys and expectations and the end-to-end processes across the extended value chain that will deliver those, a blueprint is created, that is used to form the target solution with the necessary integration points, data flows and security model.
Connected Supply Chain ManagementXT offering builds from a Common Process Model, that brings together both the front-office demand channels and the back-office supply channels. It takes it a step further by leveraging advanced technologies such as Cloud, AI (including Generative AI), automation and IoT to create a fully integrated, transparent, efficient and responsive supply chain ecosystem.
Challenges of Connected Supply Chain ManagementXT
Implementing Connected Supply Chain managementXT presents several challenges that businesses must overcome to realize the benefits of a Customer-Centric Supply Chain.
Fragmented & Silo-ed Supply Chain
As Supply Chains evolve over time, with new channels or sources being added, either organically, through partnerships or through acquisitions, the complexity increases. Those additions often have their own processes & systems, as well as their own inventory holding.
Furthermore, those sales channels can have their own inventory pool, creating duplication & excess working capital – for example, within multi-channel organizations, many e-commerce sites will have their own fulfillment center set up for small order quantity picking & distribution, as opposed to the bulk picking required for a depot network, leading to customer frustration at differing stock availabilities by channel. Alternatively, an acquisition or partnership will bring its own product catalog with the associated hierarchies, that will need harmonizing with the existing in order to present a single view to customers.
Data Integration
One of the biggest challenges in implementing Connected Supply Chain ManagementXT is integrating data from various sources and systems because different systems adopt distinct protocols, resulting in a lack of standardization in data in business processes. This requires a significant investment in technology and resources to ensure that data can be collected and analyzed in a meaningful way.
Integration with Legacy Systems
Many organizations have legacy systems that are not compatible with the latest technologies used in Connected Supply Chain ManagementXT. Integrating these systems with new technologies can be a time-consuming and expensive process. This is especially true within manufacturing plants, where some equipment predated the advent of digital communications.
Data Security
The implementation of Customer-Centric Supply Chain ManagementXT requires the sharing of sensitive data across multiple stakeholders, as well as a proliferation of endpoints via the rise of IoT. The risk of data breaches and cyber-attacks is high, and there is a need for robust security measures to protect the data and ensure its integrity.
Organizational Alignment
Implementing Connected Supply Chain ManagementXT requires collaboration and alignment across various departments and stakeholders within a business. This can be challenging as different teams may have different priorities and goals, often with delegated responsibility to a local GM or Operations team. This is further compounded where the value chain extends across 3rd party organizations, that need to be aligned to deliver the right customer outcome.
Change Management
Implementing Connected Supply Chain ManagementXT often requires significant changes to existing processes and systems. This can be difficult for businesses to manage, particularly if they have a large and complex Supply Chain.
Connected Supply Chain ManagementXT framework
Our Connected Supply Chain ManagementXT solution starts with understanding (or establishing when required) your end-to-end architecture and putting in place meaningful building blocks.
The expert teams at InspireXT utilize the common process model by collaborating with your business champions to craft a tailored guideline that suits your business operation. It then becomes a blueprint and a basis for the successful implementation of a Connected Supply ChainXT.
Many clients tell us that managing a customer order journey through a diverse range of steps as well as keeping the customer informed in real time are some of the challenges, they face in ever evolving multi-channel environment.
This can be due to silos that exist between the channels and actors involved in the process. Efficiently and cost-effectively meeting a customer promise requires not only internal business functions but also many external stakeholders such as Carriers, Payment Providers, and Suppliers to work together.
Order management and orchestration solutions that can orchestrate the order journey from capture to fulfillment and manage the complexity with relevant automation will greatly enhance your customers’ experience, reinforced by jeopardy management that monitors the process and proactively alerts where the SLA is at risk of being missed – enabling corrective action to keep it on track.
The world continues to be more connected, and your products and services are reaching new geographies. With our Connected Supply ChainXT solution, you can onboard new channels quickly without disrupting to your business operations – including 3rd party drop ship vendors who can extend your range, or 3rd party sales channels and marketplaces who will extend your reach. These integrations can range from extensive & real time to basic & batch depending on the capabilities available within that new channel.
Your customers are more likely to engage if the product catalog is consistent, and comprehensive and conveys the same information to all channels they engage in.
Not only do you need to keep product taxonomies in check, but all other operational matters such as languages, prices, promotions, and stock availability information play equally important roles.
You may also have some regional restrictions due to regulations or safety or regulatory reasons. With our Connected Supply ChainXT solution we will provide solution guidelines for standardized capabilities and meaningful extensibility that product stewards and orders can implement to greatly reduce time to value.
If your business has the luxury of unlimited inventory and working capital, perhaps this might not be a challenge for you, however, many want to achieve more with less.
If you are amongst the ones needing to protect margins, and conserve cash, then utilizing a technology-enabled solution will be the right answer for you. The solution must converge your channels, suggest how much to buy, or make, and how to deliver on customer promises.
With our Connected Supply ChainXT solution, we enable efficient stock strategies including providing all your demand channels with the most accurate and dependable information to serve your customers.
Whether it is Discrete or Process or Mixed manufacturing, we have the right ‘solution components’ and ‘formulas’ to serve your shopfloor needs and ensure that the Quality does not suffer.
Capture data and documents from your resources in real-time (be it people, equipment, or processes), analyze and identify bottlenecks and increase your operational efficiency to reduce resource and energy consumption. Not to mention proactive upkeep of your equipment to reduce downtimes, enable alternatives to be planned, and to ensure minimal impact on operational throughput.
With our Connected ShopfloorXT, digitizing your shopfloor has never been easier. In industries such as pharmaceuticals, where compliance and regulatory norms are expected to be 100%, our offerings empower you and provide the confidence to always sustain them.
Many businesses offer their products in multiple configurations, many have customers requiring visibility across agreements and terms, and almost all have external supply bases needing to detach the physical supply chain from the financial supply chain.
Customers love choices but also want simple options and predictable delivery and fulfillment timeframe. Offering a simplified experience can add business process and systems complexity, and many businesses start to create silos. In a multi-channel getting your product or service across to your customer faster is the key, financial compliance should just happen behind the scenes, automatically.
With our Connected Supply ChainXT solution, you can progressively break away from these silos by connecting your demand channels to a common process model, which takes care of the complexity, so your operations continue to do what they do best, make available great products and services.
Our approach
Process review & design, including internal and external stakeholders.
Leading practices supported by enabling technology.
Outline configurable and flexible solutions that can respond to changing business needs.
Enhance capabilities – adding new ones or improving existing ones – based on robust solution architecture.
Pragmatic implementation approach from concept through to deployment with phasing options
Request for services
Find out more about how we can help your organization navigate its next. Let us know your areas of interest so that we can serve you better.
