The complex nature of doing business in a global market can be a challenge for organizations’ supply chains. Supply chain experts have encouraged organizations to become adaptable so that they can maintain an advantage over competitors, and many companies have responded by stepping up their efforts. Organizations are turning more toward data visibility, data analysis, and collaboration to enable them to better anticipate market changes.

Data from APQC’s Open Standards Benchmarking shows that just over 80 percent of organizations have adopted a rapid response to changes in market conditions. As shown in the figure below, of these organizations the largest group has somewhat adopted processes to support a rapid response.

To enable the most prompt and thorough response to changes in the market, leading organizations use a number of tactics. These include:

• enabling internal access to enterprise information,
• using predictive analytics to better anticipate changes that could occur, and
• conducting collaborative planning with external partners using agile, web-enabled technologies.

Yet APQC’s research has shown that most organizations haven’t adopted such mature practices. Only 10 percent of companies surveyed have access to real-time internal and external data and incorporate data-driven decision making within the enterprise. A majority of companies don’t conduct electronic collaborative planning with their suppliers or their customers at all. Only about 17 percent conduct collaborative planning with customers using web-enabled technologies, and about 22 percent conduct this type of planning with suppliers.

Companies clearly have room to improve when it comes to adopting practices to support a fast response to market changes. Has your organization adopted mature practices for data visibility and analysis? Is there more you could do with external partners to support supply chain visibility?

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