Make Data One Part of a Strategy

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the September-October 2014 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

September-October 2014

2014 marks the 10 year anni­ver­sary of the Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 ranking. This year we have a diverse set of large, global companies with mature, demand-driven supply chains. There are lessons to be learned from these supply chain leaders, many of whom have led their industries over the past decade.

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Many organizations seek to benefit from information transparency, especially in their supply chains. One approach organizations have taken to achieve this goal is to share real-time, electronic demand and inventory levels within the enterprise and with external partners. The belief is that making this information available will enable organizations to shorten order processing times through improved inventory levels and deliver a more accurate picture of customer needs.

While it may seem counterintuitive, our research indicates that organizations that focus on data sharing without also addressing their underlying processes sometimes end up with less efficient supply chains than other organizations. In other words, while access to real-time demand and inventory data gives a more accurate picture of customer needs, information alone is not enough.

What then is the current state of the market?
Data from APQC’s Open Standards Benchmarking in logistics indicates that a slight majority of organizations (59 percent) have adopted the sharing of real-time, electronic demand and inventory data within the enterprise and with external partners ( Of organizations that do make this data available, 26 percent have done so extensively.

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