To keep up with lofty yet mandatory customer expectations, your supply chain can’t afford to stop investing in technology that improves processes, connects business partners and IoT data, and uses machine learning algorithms to improve business outcomes. If the people tasked with running your supply chain are relying on poorly built or outdated systems filled with data quality issues, then they need new technology solutions and strategies to overcome these shortcomings to create true value.

As you strive to balance cost while simultaneously improve your customer service, you are no doubt confronting issues that require better collaboration amongst your group as well as the numerous companies you interact with daily. The days of each department or company working on an island while hoping groups further downstream can correct any mistakes are long gone.

Nowadays, those of us in the supply chain space realize the need for ongoing collaboration with everyone who touches our supply chain. This can take the form of sharing data around forecasts, inventory positions, capacity plans, order status (both at rest and in-transit), as well as visibility into shipments.

Competitive supply chains must enable a new level of coordinated performance that creates a high-fidelity picture of in-process flows across your extended network. Building the continuous supply chain supports contextual deviations, conveys alerts and drives continuous planning via sense & respond capabilities.

Optimizing multi-party business processes

Supply chains are complex networks where over 80% of the data and processes sits within partner systems. To see and act on the latest picture of your supply chain, your company needs that data from each of your partners, but the problem is most companies rely solely on an enterprise-centric approach to solve a multi-enterprise problem.

The only way to overcome those limitations is to adopt a "network approach." Connecting all partners to shared processes, data and metrics managed within a single platform creates a single version of truth for all parties. This allows supply chains to eliminate the data silos and inherent latency in order to reduce the root causes of friction, variability and costs in today’s supply chains, both internally and externally.

I recently posted on LinkedIn to ask my colleagues for advice on how to manage my exploding workload. According to the latest Mental Health Index: U.S. Worker Edition from Total Brain, between November and December there was a 48% increase in the risk of depression—a risk level not seen since this past spring. Further, employees’ focus dropped 62%—a record low since the inception of the research in February 2020. While remote working has its benefits, most of us would argue that we need to make some significant changes for this style of working to be sustainable. Below are a few of the suggestions and ideas from professionals that commented on the post.

Digitizing core processes in combination with trading partner connectivity, helps supply chain leaders increase responsiveness and adaptability. As more organizations look to remove manual tasks from their operations, the ability to update suppliers and trading partners in real-time allows supply chain processes to become more efficient. Here are three scenarios where moving to a network platform have helped companies generate additional value across their supply chain.

• A footwear provider experiencing rapid growth realized spreadsheets and manual processes were no longer sufficient to support increase demand and future progression. The brand digitally transformed sourcing, procurement, accounts payable, finance, and supplier management processes to support scale. The ability to digitally collaborate on orders, invoices, settlements, and ASN creation was foundational to the transformation. Witnessing 4X growth, the company today has 99.8% invoice accuracy and spends approximately 30 minutes per day processing invoices.

• A major global sports apparel brand sought to solidify the health of its supply base by ensuring access to capital. Utilizing a multi-enterprise network allowed the company to connect all parties and digitized document flow, enabling automated financing and settlement. A diverse portfolio of finance providers was plugged in to create a significant pool of credit and programs to meet varying needs. In doing so, the brand was able to enhance the financial health of its suppliers while deploying its own capital preservation program.

• An outdoor gear manufacturer having automated its PO, invoice, and settlement processes to generate efficiency was seeking further avenues to improve margins. It leveraged existing transaction data to auto-populate ASNs and packing and shipping instructions, enabling direct shipments from the factory. As a result, plans for new distribution center were deemed no longer necessary due to increased efficiency.

Even when your warehouse operations seem to be running smoothly, there is always room for improvement and a need to stay up to date with innovation. While steps are taken to keep warehouse operations at peak performance, when fulfilment times and levels are jeopardized, it’s still up to you and your team to race to recover, to ensure actions to get back on track are taken correctly so that product can make its way out the door, and time is always working against you.

If your organization previously reviewed and dismissed the value of moving your warehouse management system (WMS) to the cloud, it’s time to reevaluate. Decisions that seemed to make sense last year or even last quarter, likely look very different with new challenges emerging over the past several months. By empowering critical systems like a WMS with cloud capabilities, your organization can scale quickly, maximize productivity, and minimize outages and downtime to prevent bringing the company’s mission-critical operations to its knees.

Know you want to transform but don't know where to start? Want to gain $9-12 for every dollar you spend? Read on to find out why starting with your people is the best first step to prioritizing digital transformation projects.

Digital transformation is at the top of the to-do lists of most companies, but one topic that is often missing from a discussion on digital transformation is which areas to prioritize. Most businesses can’t afford to completely overhaul a core function of the enterprise top to bottom, along with the technology that supports it, at any one time. Instead, they’ll target specific areas for transformation. That approach minimizes disruption to the business, keeps costs manageable, and helps the business apply lessons learned to future transformation projects. The question, though, is which areas to target first?

1. Are we organizationally ready for significant change?

Organizations are only as good as their people, and manufacturers must look carefully at whether they have the right people and culture to support a different way of doing things. It is the people who will be responsible for implementing change, and they should be ready, committed, and on board with any type of transformation plan.

An organization’s culture can make or break a digital transformation project and “organizational change management” is one of the key components of such a project. Organizations should aim for an inclusive culture where people feel like they are key contributors to the company’s future success.

To achieve this, management teams should encourage a culture of openness to help employees step forward with their ideas. All change, and all transformation, starts with an idea – so it’s important for people to feel empowered to put their ideas out in the open.

Put the Power of Infor CloudSuite M3 ERP Solution in Your Pocket

Leveraging Infor CloudSuite M3 ERP Solution and Infor Factory Track to Increase efficiencies in your warehouse and shop floor

Join ICCG as we present a 30-minute Master Class … where you will have the opportunity to see a demo of Infor Factory Track in action. You’ll gain valuable insight from our work with multiple customers and we are ready to share our knowledge with you.

Maybe you are curious on what it takes to implement, administrate functions, or compare Lawson Warehouse Mobility, and Infor Factory Track. Bring your questions because now is the time to implement this Cloud-Based WMS and shop floor tool and we would like to help you get there!

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Sean has had the opportunity to experience CloudSuite on multiple levels over the last 15+ years. He has used the system first-hand as an end user, configured multiple instances as an implementation consultant, and led acquisition implementation teams as the CIO for a $300M distribution company with 23 branches. He has also leveraged the CloudSuite platform within multiple organizations to increase efficiencies and provide innovated solutions to their current real-world challenges within the Manufacturing, Chemical, F&B, Distribution, and Fashion industries. 

While it would be easy to reflect on 2020 as a disastrous dumpster fire of a year, the reality is that the pandemic has changed the workplace for the better. And many of these modifications are likely to be permanent. This is undoubtedly difficult to appreciate from our current vantagepoint, but by the end of 2021 we will likely witness the seeds sown during the crisis begin to bear sustainable fruit. In fact, you can already observe alterations that have had almost universal impact regardless of industry or geography.

Redefining workplace norms

The last 50 years of work have been defined by predictable patterns involving who is doing the work, where it occurs and when it happens. While these standards have been impacted by technological advancements, demographic shifts and emerging social norms, COVID-19 has accelerated the arrival of new ways of working. While most organizations initially resisted the inevitable reforms that accompanied the crisis, virtually all of them eventually accepted that work can be done anywhere, anytime and by almost anyone.