Dive Brief:
- Enhanced supply chain visibility is an increasingly pivotal component for brand awareness and loyalty, with experts predicting that by 2020, the supply chain will be fully oriented toward customer expectations, Supply Chain Brain reported.
- End-to-end networks are the truest form of visibility, encompassing every aspect of the supply chain from the time of order all the way through fabrication to ultimate delivery.
- The old way of viewing the chain as a linear process is outdated; with the influx of technology, the chain is a complex web of relationships, each node requiring transparency for customers to observe and evaluate.
Dive Insight:
A large part of transparency awareness is understanding which supply chain risk node is being addressed. A supply network focusing on resilience organizes its strategy, operations, management, and governance in order to highlight, discern and adapt to risk. The resilience of a supply network lies within its power to absorb and withstand disruption while continuing to progress. By reducing the perception of assumed risk, the supply chain manager gains an additional element of visibility and therefore a competitive advantage.
Expanding on basic resilience, there also exists strategic resilience, wherein the supply network responds to strategy changes and other disruptions. Going beyond adapting to a single crises, a strategic supply network demands perpetual invention and reinvention.
Finally, there exists operational resilience, in which a supply network adjusts itself to the fits and starts of business, whether seasonal or product-specific.