“At the end of the day – there are 2 fundamental questions a supply chain solution has to answer – Where’s my money? Where’s my goods?” – at ReTechCon 2013, Tony Low used this provocative statement to reduce supply chain down to basics and get the audience engaged.
While presenting GT Nexus’s work in the area of supply chain – he used the following testimonial: “Customers say” When I want to talk to myself – I look at my ERP. When I want to converse with my suppliers I look at the GT Nexus Platform”
With retailers across the world, moving towards multi-channel, supply chain technology has to answer the question “How is your supply chain going to support all your customer facing technology efforts?”
GT Nexus has modeled its solutions on the cloud supply chain.
A Cloud Supply Chain is the informational replica of the “real” supply chain “on the ground” in that it reflects each of the actual objects and actors in the physical supply chain just once, in the Cloud, so that any time an object changes status, the change is made once, in one place, and everyone who needs to know gets the news immediately. It’s this model that enables massively scalable information sharing across a global network of partners.
As Tony explained “That’s not a small idea, that’s a big idea. It’s a breakthrough. Cloud Supply Chain gets a company and its network on the same page, literally”
The objective of the supply chain solution should be to help retailers squeeze cost out of their supply chain, streamline their trade operations and inject financing where appropriate while providing complete visibility & transparency for themselves and their entire trading community.
The presentation laid out 8 ways in which supply chain can support business strategy: (a useful checklist for any CIO looking for a supply chain solution!)
| Enhance Omni Channel Visibility | Improve customer service through seamless order visibility from factory/DC to customer across all modes in today’s cross-channel environment. |
| Accelerate Global Growth | Manage the flow of globally sourced and distributed goods as retailers and brands address saturated domestic markets and utilize international and category expansion as their primary engine for growth |
| Improve Speed to Market | Reduce supply risk by establishing advanced visibility into supplier ordering, WIP, and shipping, including raw materials forecast and open orders. |
| Deliver Supply Chain Agility | Dynamically reallocate supply against volatile POS demand to profitably satisfy top-priority customers while reducing inventory and increasing fill rates. |
| Enable Direct Shipment | Reduce costs and lead times and supply chain complexity by packing at the source . Enable cross docking and DC bypass for more direct inventory flow to the point of consumer demand |
| Transform Financial Supply Chain | Reduce cost and improve supplier trust by automating invoicing, approval, payment, charge-back processing, and early payment discounting. |
| Reduce Freight Spend | Optimize the integrated lifecycle of freight procurement and ensure global compliance against carrier allocations and freight budgets |
| Increase Direct Sourcing | Increase sourcing flexibility by leveraging vast connected vendor communities and expand global fulfillment capability to 3rd party customers |