The right business intelligence is key in today's Supply Chain environment

Mon, 01/26/2009 - 15:54

Aberdeen Group, announced the release of a benchmark report, "Supply Chain Intelligence: A Command and Control Center for Managing Enterprise Performance." From October to November 2008, Aberdeen benchmarked the supply chain intelligence capabilities of 138 enterprises.

"In today's global business environment, managing supply chain-wide information effectively is becoming critical to business success. Today's multi-enterprise supply chains require the 'intelligent enterprise' to make optimal decisions not only within its four walls, but also as it relates to managing supply chain partners and distribution networks. To make optimal decisions across end-to-end supply chains, executives and mid-level managers require actionable insights and intelligence on tactical and strategic levels," says Nari Viswanathan, Vice President and co-author of the report. This study shows that Best-in-Class companies have achieved competitive differentiation by improving their supply chain intelligence capabilities. For example, Best-in-Class companies are:

• 27% more likely than all others to have the ability to provide visibility to executives into critical business level metrics
• 64% more likely to have the drill-down capability in their SCI tools to determine causes of business level challenges (root cause analysis)
• 20% more likely than all others to collaborate across the enterprise to gather supply chain data
• 30% more likely than all others to be collaborating with supply chain partners to get timely and accurate supply chain data
• 25% more likely to create ad-hoc reports without help from IT

"It is critical for companies to move from just having visibility into processes to taking control over them. Enhanced supply chain intelligence capabilities are required to better understand supply chain processes and trends and take control of the business outcomes. Being able to take control of and respond to disruptive events is critical for the long-term business success," says Viktoriya Sadlovska, Research Analyst and co-author of the report.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Dimensional Insight and Infor. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5391