Supply chain visibility is often thought of as tracking the physical location of goods and assets. But the process of getting products to customers is ultimately a digital one — from negotiations, purchase orders, and acknowledgments to shipping confirmations and receiving payment.
Visibility into this data is key to building better supply chains. Big retailers have many supply chain-specific compliance programs to which suppliers must adhere, or face being fined. At a technical level, regulations specify the data required for business documents and the timing of their transmission. At an operational level, unreadable barcodes, unauthorized item substitutions, incorrect carton sizes, defective products and late or early deliveries are also events that may trigger chargebacks. Platforms that provide visibility to complete supply chain data will support compliance with a process that flags non-compliant occurrences and provides an opportunity for them to be corrected. Uncorrected discrepancies could reach up to 30% of the value of an order, wiping out whatever profit the vendor was expecting from the transaction.
Companies that utilize these platforms automatically and proactively discover and correct misses on their customers’ service-level agreements (SLAs), minimizing revenue leakage. Since these advanced platforms have access to all relevant data, exceptions and chargebacks are subject to be audited after the fact and rectified if necessary. They are also able to support the tracking of performance metrics with dashboards and scorecards that report on how business partners are performing and provide insights into those indicators.
These reports can be customized to compare performances and provide trend analyses based on a variety of factors. Access to this information allows all parties to supply chain transactions to improve their businesses and collaborate on outstanding issues. The ability for suppliers to minimize chargebacks and penalties feeds operational efficiency and customer satisfaction — leading to more orders and revenue.
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