Best Practices in Data-driven Decision-making for Supply Chains

Data is now being generated everywhere, across supply chains, from IoT sensors, social media to mobile apps — a constant, dynamic stream of data in a multitude of flavors, formats, and functions. Making sense of this data and harnessing it to stay ahead of the competition is vital for an enterprise to survive and grow in this dynamic, data-driven world.

What is Data-Driven Decision-Making?

Data-driven decision-making refers to leveraging the insights gleaned from intelligent data collated from all sources to make strategic data-based decisions aligned with the enterprise’s objectives rather than with intuition or observation.

Data-based decision-driven model puts integrated data at the center of the business, eliminating silos and seamlessly connecting all systems. These systems include direct and indirect procurement, ERP, manufacturing, distribution, sales, and other interrelated activities. The goal of the business is to harness the power of all the real-time data, wherever it is located, to drive innovation in its offerings.

What are the Benefits of Data-Based Decision-Making in Supply Chain & Procurement?

The success of data decision-making depends on what the business does with the data and how it leverages it to drive innovation. A unified master data management and data science platform built into a software-based, cloud-centric platform that maximizes agility and minimizes complexity helps organizations drive supply chain efficiency to unprecedented levels.

Listed below are a few of the benefits provided by data-based decision-making:

1. Enhanced end-to-end visibility and accountability
2. Improved performance and efficiency
3. Actionable insights
4. Better forecasting for driving the value chain
5. Consistent decision-making enterprise-wide

What are the Best Practices in Data-driven Decision-making in Supply Chain and Procurement?

Businesses have invested in the technologies to derive insights from data and leverage those insights to become not only innovative, but also disruptive by changing the rules of the game.

To thrive in this data-inundated world, enterprises opting for data-driven supply chains must follow certain best practices:

1. Shift from Inside Out to Outside In

Although many companies have adopted ERP to manage their supply chains, they have not shifted out of the “Inside Out” mindset. To succeed now and into the future, businesses must move towards an “Outside In” model where process efficiency is replaced with agility, as market forces and customer demands dictate our strategic plans. This means adopting the latest data-centric, real-time analytics technology and modern business processes.

2. Emphasis on Data Quality & Analytics

The emphasis here is on data management, including master data management. The data used to generate insights must be clean and accurate. The output realized would be faulty and unreliable if the data is inaccurate and not from a trusted source.

3. Evaluate and Invest in the Right Software

To truly unify the digital supply chain and procurement functions, businesses must invest in a platform that is at the core of the business, seamlessly integrating the various disparate systems – legacy tech, ERP, AI, analytics, automation, cloud computing and cybersecurity. This platform must also connect all the business functions that an enterprise requires for smooth operations to generate profits. In other words, it refers to a unified platform that can leverage data, wherever and whenever required, with real-time, end-to-end visibility, cognitive intelligence, and insight.

4. Move Routine Workloads to Cloud Models

Moving routine tasks to the cloud will provide scalability and agility to the enterprise. This will also help free the supervisory staff to focus more on strategic initiatives.

5. Remove All Silos

Silos are detrimental to the supply chain as seamless integration is not achieved. Thus, accurate data insights are impossible. A business cannot leverage the data if critical aspects of the supply chain are siloed off from the rest—either by data, applications or workload.

6. Ensure Cyber Security & Compliance

With technology comes the risk of cyberattacks. The vast interconnected network of the supply chain of an enterprise is vulnerable to attacks at multiple points and levels. Guarding against such attacks is vital for ensuring the integrity of the supply chain and the enterprise.

Compliance is another issue that must be tackled. Globalization means complying with different regulations of different regions, such as data privacy and data sovereignty.

Conclusion

The future is digital transformation powered by data analytics. By 2022, more than 60% of global GDP will be digitized, according to a paper by TechTarget and GEP. It says that by 2023, 75% of all IT spending will be for digital transformation, with more than 90% of enterprises building “digital-native IT environments to thrive in the digital economy”. Businesses risk being disrupted if they do not adopt digital transformation.