A critical lesson many organizations have learned when measuring the success of analytics initiatives is that speed of deployment and widespread user adoption are key factors to consider. These are key benefits of analytic applications delivered with or embedded in ERP systems or business applications.

Analytic applications provide pre-built business intelligence (BI) and analytical capabilities that promise to democratize analytics because most of the hard work in transforming data to insights has already been done. However, the historical challenge these applications faced was that they weren’t built with agile cloud technology or modern data architectures that could keep up with the growing complexity, scale, and changing requirements of the line of business (LOB)-driven analytic requirements.

The ability to execute, seamlessly and in real-time, is critical as your company works to develop a continuous supply chain. Being uniquely capable of connecting multiple facets of this execution -- not just to an order management system but also to TMS for transportation management and WMS for warehouse management will be key components to implementing continuous supply chain execution.

Integrated multi-party source-to-settle process

Sourcing execution or the ability to establish real-time connectivity to suppliers is key. What we are really speaking to here is the need to orchestrate end-to-end physical and financial operations between order management, global trade management, transportation, warehouse, product traceability, and even payables management.

Streamlined manufacturing

Manufacturing execution is focused on streamlining processes, driving better decision making and gaining productivity. Supply chains must optimize and automate the manufacturing process from raw materials and components to finished goods. Having the ability to anticipate and optimize lead times is crucial for downstream improvement.

The future of planning is connected, intelligent, and continuous. Yet many companies remain so far away from this vision, it often seems unachievable. With many planning processes being so siloed and disconnected from execution, they can feel ineffective.

Fortunately, evaluations of the planning landscape reveal many organizations are adopting technologies that move towards a de-siloed, network-based approach to planning. For these companies, the primary goal centers around connecting planning capabilities to “a single version of the truth.” To optimize planning capabilities, it crucial to achieve this connection at the enterprise level as well as into the broader supply network.

But to do this involves using integrated business planning (IBP) or sales and operations planning (S&OP) to collaborate and analyze, perform demand planning to improve forecasting, optimize supply planning, and facilitate synchronization. Each of these areas are critical to a successful planning process and are more powerful when integrated and connected across a network.

An estimated $350 billion of invoices are typically involved in supply chain finance programs. Known as "reverse factoring," this process assists suppliers in obtaining the capital needed to keep supply chains humming, as described by Aite Group. Opposed to traditional receivables financing or factoring, reverse factoring is driven by the buyer and its relationship to a bank or finance provider, with capital being made available to suppliers based on the relationship parameters.

Banks are happy to step in, within specific jurisdictions and credit profiles. Research firm Coalition reports that banks logged approximately $12.7 billion in revenue in the first half of 2020 via total supply chain finance volumes. However, limitations are significant, and often times, the suppliers that need financing the most are excluded from such programs.

As fashion organizations grow to introduce new products or clothing lines, acquire other companies, shift priorities, and change channels to market, key stakeholders can be left out of the conversation. A networked approach to running your company can solve these problems. Collaborative networks work because they engage internal and external partners, workers, and stakeholders, helping to incentivize and execute supply chain processes more effectively than ever before.

New insights will continue to emerge as consumer behaviors shift and production opportunities evolve, but a continuously synchronized and updated network can keep you agile from sketch to store by making critical information accessible to colleagues, organizations, suppliers, and customers. Collaborative networks work to improve customer service, maximize margins, and minimize loss attributed to miscommunications such as missed inventory targets, downtime, spoilage, and other challenges. 

The fashion industry thrives on innovation. It’s what the consumer wants from us—something new, not just clones or replacements for worn-out items. New product introductions are critical to business success, but only half of them achieve the profit objectives set before launch. To improve the ratio of hits to disappointments, it is essential to listen to the consumer and collaborate with the supply chain.

The consumer sets the bar for value and the supply chain determines whether you meet or miss it. The next decade will call for significant materials and process innovations at both the micro (product) and the macro (enterprise, supply chain, and industry) level. If shorter, more frequent product introduction cycles were the only challenge… but they’re not. At strategic planning levels, the industry must figure out how to convert to more sustainable ways of doing business, starting with raw materials and research and development and expanding product lifecycle management practices to include recycling. At the operational level, rethink the way you work internally and collaborate with supply chain partners to eliminate waste throughout the value chain. If a process doesn’t add value for the consumer, don’t do it. Optimize the entire value chain and focus it on value creation. Innovations arise at every stage, when all the partners can see the value chain as a whole.

An established digital ecosystem lets brands reduce design-plan-manufacture cycles, improve supply chain planning accuracy, enable end-to-end inventory visibility, and help manage financial orchestration and liquidity. This helps ensure that the right products get to the right place, at the right time—on budget, and aligned with sustainability efforts that appeal to customers socially and environmentally. Additionally, a connected supply chain can improve visibility of key production metrics such as water usage and chemical content, all of which can be shared with consumers.

Collaborative networks connect complex systems of enterprises, applications, service providers, data sources, and devices involved in a fashion brand’s value chain and host them on a cloud-based platform for optimal performance and accessibility. Cloud-based systems facilitate the communication, performance, scale, security, and computing power needed to leverage technology solutions across the entire design to the manufacturing cycle.

Food and beverage companies have long struggled with the unique requirements of shelf life management, complexities of batch scheduling, traceability, and many other factors. In addition, uncertainties around tariffs, sustainability initiatives, and growing regulations are some of a multitude of dynamics that will surely add even more complexity to the mix. Many of these issues and trends can have profound impact on your entire supply chain—from procurement to manufacturing to delivery.

Infor's Mike Edgett and Christine Barnhardt and I had the opportunity to discuss a number of challenges as it relates to supply chain complexities in the food and beverage industry. In the webinar, we segmented the challenges into three buckets; gain global visibility, predict and respond to volatility, and embrace the best technology.

We all tend to limit our focus to the variables within our control, however, it’s time to rethink all supply chain processes because they are not as efficient as they need to be. We did a survey of the companies that were on the Infor Nexus network, about two years ago, and what we found is that about 46% of them said that prior to implementing Infor Nexus it took them as long as three days to identify where a product were, and when it was going to be available. Very clearly the data is not available to help us make good decisions. On top of that, there are gaps for how manufacturers connect with customers, suppliers and carriers outside of the enterprise, whether it be multiple point-to-point EDI connections, portals, spreadsheets, emails—the list is almost endless—and very difficult to maintain.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the health of individuals, communities, and economic sectors—and that includes retail establishments. Around the globe, in every country,normal life has changed dramatically, and we see the results in store closures (both temporary and permanent), employee layoffs, and people focused on and immediate essential needs. So we see apparel, shoes and non-essentials dropped down the list of purchasing priorities.

We already know that most retailers were under intense margin and revenue pressure before this crisis hit. Now one of the new financial burdens resulting from the pandemic is an abundance of inventory trapped throughout the supply chain. But, amidst this, there is still good news. If you are a retail business, there are a variety of options for you to work through these situational excesses. The optimal combination will depend on each retailer’s unique situation.

As the global economy slowly reopens, this timely blog from our partner, Info shares how retailers actually have 5 major opportunities for resolving their overstock issues.

In today’s highly technical, data-driven fashion environment, the limited functionality of spreadsheets and other outdated, manual-entry tools often result in significant time lags, data inaccuracies, linear sequential processes, and an inability to integrate with shared data libraries. When the greatest asset a fashion manufacturers can have is getting new ideas to consumers quickly, manufacturers can’t afford to let technology slow them down.

That’s why fashion companies need Infor CloudSuite™ PLM for Fashion—a modern, product lifecycle
management (PLM) solution that can handle the fast-paced demands of a 21st-century fashion business. It can help brands develop new styles with increased speed, greater flexibility, and more consistent quality.

Based in the cloud, CloudSuite PLM for Fashion lets you work from anywhere, on virtually any device.Innovate faster. Infor CloudSuite PLM for Fashion is a powerful PLM and collaboration platform that can help fashion manufacturers and their value chain partners innovate faster, make processes more efficient, and easily share information. As a result, fashion manufacturers will have the tools they need to create exciting fashions and deliver them to consumers faster.