How To Boost Supply Chain Management With Business Intelligence

If you are looking for ways to optimize the supply chain in your business, BI is what you need. Business intelligence can make supply chain management easier and more effective. Your chain is optimized, made more efficient, and increases the profitability of your company because of the direct effects of good BI integration into the supply chain. Read on for an in-depth look into how implementing Business Intelligence into your supply network can boost your company for the future.

Reasons for the Popularity of BI in the Supply Chain Sector

Companies are demanding the integration of Business Intelligence tools into their logistics and supply chain departments. There are many factors that influence the high demand for BI in these sectors of a company. One of the most influential is the improved visibility of the smallest details pertaining to the spending in these departments of your company. With more visibility, you can control the flow of cash in the supply chain better.

Your managers in these departments can also analyze the data on transportation and logistics spending to identify any trends that are negatively impacting overall performance through the supply chain. From these trends, the causes of impacts to profitability can be identified and remedied. Managers can also theorize and experiment with new ways to improve the efficiency of the supply chain through new strategies.

Another reason why you need BI in your supply chain management sector is to make sense out of the large volume of data presented here. With technologies like transportation management and warehouse management included in most supply chain BI tools, data can be accessed, analyzed, visualized, and processed with ease. When you understand your raw data better, you make strategically wise decisions for your company.

Real-Time Dashboards Make Decisions Easier

One of the biggest advantages of a BI suite in the supply chain sector is the presence of real-time dashboards. These provide you with a fast, constantly updated, daily look at the events in your supply network. You can now identify issues as they arise and make decisions to rectify them before their effects cause too much damage to your business as a whole. These dashboards allow you and your managers to look at the supply chain as a single unit or as a series of individual processes.

You can also opt for the exception-based management of supply chain processes, setting up your real-time Business Intelligence dashboard to raise a red flag if a certain event occurs. A good example of this is a delivery to the manufacturing plant. The delivery is supposed to happen the next day but hasn’t been assigned to a transportation unit by 3 p.m. the day before. In this instance, the system would notify you at this point, allowing you to contact the relevant department, fix the problem before it becomes one, and then take measures to prevent it from happening again.

The Smallest Inefficiencies are Rooted Out

You can use BI tools in your supply chain to boost the efficiency by the smallest amount to make a huge difference in the overall profitability of your company. Take, for example, an instance where your BI dashboard reports that delivery to a certain location from a specific source is taking longer on average than other delivery routes of the same distance. You can identify this issue and figure out the cause, whether it is congestion on the road your transports take. The solution, an alternative route or switching the recipient to a different source, can be implemented instantaneously and your dashboard will tell you if the new route is better.

Use BI tools in your supply chain management sector to boost your efficiency. Watch as your data is visualized and presented in a format that makes decision-making easier. Sit back and manage by exception, improving profits for your company and bringing it up to maximum productivity one step at a time. BI tools in the supply chain are the best choice for your company. Take the leap today.