Supply chains all around the world have been disrupted over the last several years. As a result, supply chain visibility has become increasingly important. While full visibility is near-impossible to achieve for a variety of reasons, industry leaders remain optimistic about the future of supply chain visibility and have already begun to view it as a necessity in their processes.
There is simply to great a volume of obstacles to data acquisition throughout the supply chain. These could be between the buyer and seller, various disjointed apps utilized by involved companies and 3PLs, or a slew of other reasons. However, supply chain visibility continues to improve in its efforts of making full-visibility a reality, and the latest technologies have made great strides on those fronts in recent years.
Supply Chain Visibility’s Connection to Revenue
In a survey of supply chain directors, over 60% reported that the reasoning behind pursuing visibility in their supply chains was due to controlling cost efficiency. A lack of visibility causes a whole slew of issues across the supply chain, including stock-outs, poor customer experiences, and increasing costs.
It’s the hope that by improving the technology used in monitoring supply chains, additional information can be utilized to add clarity to the entire process. This level of clarity that may initially appear out-of-grasp can usually be attained with the aid of best-in-class visibility into supply chain gaps. By having real-time access to all variables, for instance, (near) full visibility enables businesses to identify supply chain concerns before they affect the company’s bottom line. This proactive step in risk mitigation increases predictability and stability of revenue, supply chain processes, delivery times, and so much more.
Research shows that 69% of customers are less likely to shop with a store again if an item they bought is not delivered within two days of the estimated delivery date. By utilizing technological advancements in supply chain visibility, we can improve the timeliness and accuracy of deliveries, which not only affects the short-term revenue, but also the long-term customer retention of companies.
Continuous Improvement & Proactive Decision Making
The continuous improvement that comes from supply chain visibility allows businesses to notice any discrepancies with their orders and deliveries, as it provides them with an incredibly clear view of the end-to-end process involved with a shipment. This data can all be used to identify mismatches or discrepancies of information and documents related to the purchase of the goods, the transportation, and any associated receipts, as well as cargo-specific information such as the quantity of goods being shipped and their prices.
The other major benefit for pursuing supply chain visibility is the ability to define exception rules. These would have a positive effect on a company by decreasing the amount of fees, chargebacks, or other related penalties that may arise from oversite due to lack of information in during the logistics process. Once again, this is all improved since it empowers decision makers at businesses to be proactive in their involvement with needed adjustments to shipping or purchasing schedules.
Manufacturers and distributors pay chargebacks from retailers each year with 8% of their total revenue, according to a report. The ability to ensure shipments are made on schedule and with perfect precision allows businesses to fully understand the whole supply chain, which reduces risk and disruption.
The benefit of supply chain visibility boils down to this simple fact: availability and access to accurate shipping data enables businesses to understand how their supply chains operate. All of this points back to risk mitigation and the immediate access to options. Disruptions are common in the supply chain, and pursuing adding supply chain visibility tools to your company’s shipping protocols is the primary way to ensure decreased fees and associated penalties, as well as improve your customer retention and reliability as an organization.