5 Advantages of Supply Chain Visibility for Your Business

What are the advantages of supply chain visibility for your business?

1. Fosters customer trust
2. Encourages sustainable practices
3. Standardizes processes
4. Resolves disruptions easily
5. Improves Cost-efficiency

In the world of logistics, nothing is as important as delivering the product or service to the customer in the best possible condition. Ideally, the product would reach the customer without any issues. However, there is no such thing as perfect management — which leads to several avoidable and potentially unavoidable outcomes. Nevertheless, knowing the advantages of supply chain visibility and incorporating it into your shipping processes can help reduce instances of these issues from occurring.

Simply put, supply chain visibility refers to the level at which the product is traced, beginning from the procurement stage until it reaches the customer’s doorstep. Your business will greatly benefit from a closely monitored supply chain. Continue reading to learn more about its advantages.

Fosters Customer Trust

One of the most visible advantages inherent in adopting supply chain visibility is that it fosters customer trust and loyalty through an increased level of data sharing.

Customer loyalty is an important aspect of a business’ profit-earning capacity. The more the customer trusts their brand, the more they are likely to continue pouring out their resources into the company and continue availing of their products and services. When businesses with delivery services make it possible for their supply chain operations to be more transparent to the customer, the latter will more likely continue depending on that business to satisfy their needs. Simply put, supply chain visibility allows a higher level of data sharing and management.

For example, a customer who has placed an order on their product would want to know when they can expect it to arrive at their address. They will likely monitor every step of the delivery process such as the location and the status of the product at any given time. With this knowledge, they’ll be more secure in the fact their product would be delivered to them in pristine condition.

Encourages sustainable practices

In this day and age, the impacts of climate change on the world have become more evident. Companies and industries are continually experimenting on the best and most sustainable practices they can adopt in their operations. Unsustainable practices simply won’t suffice and in part due to public clamor and demand for change.

This does not mean, however, that sustainable practices would lead to a decrease in the efficiency of the business model. Environmentally safe practices, which can sustain or increase efficiency, exist in abundance. Businesses just need to continually find alternatives.

With supply chain visibility, clients and customers will be made aware of the entire process. They are more likely to view a company positively if they find out they’re using reusable packaging, for example. Supply chain visibility keeps companies more mindful of their practices. Companies today should not act purely out of a desire to turn a profit, but also because of the knowledge that unscrupulous practices should not be done.

Standardizes Processes

Companies whose main service is in the business delivery department are always aiming for consistency. With consistent processes, they can better manage operations. They would also know where to locate the source of a problem in the event that it occurs.

To better illustrate how supply chain visibility enables companies to standardize their processes, you can think about automated invoices. When you place an order on a product, the supplier would have to be made aware of the product’s specifications — its color, size, shape, and other specialized features that you would want. Through supply chain visibility, automated workflow systems are put in place – the supplier receives your request electronically, instead of a traditional pen and paper setup.

Automated systems allow for more accuracy in delivering the product. This would eventually set the standard for every level in the business delivery service model for compliance.

Resolves Disruptions Easily

Another advantage of investing in supply chain visibility is that it allows you or your business to resolve and mitigate disruptions more easily.

If you are made aware of the processes of most, if not all of your business’s operations, you would easily be able to pinpoint areas of improvement. In this way, targeting problems and resolving them would be made much easier.

For example, one common problem faced by companies with logistical operations is the case of products sitting too long in the warehouse. A more transparent supply chain command would have been able to identify that some of these products have failed to be transported to their customer on the given date, leading to a delay.

Furthermore, supply chain visibility enables you to better predict undesirable situations such as delivery bottlenecks, damaged goods, or misplaced products.

Improves Cost-efficiency

In line with the previous advantage, supply chain visibility also allows you to run a highly efficient business delivery service model. Keeping abreast of every level of your operation saves you extra cost and burden in terms of handling damaged goods, for example. Furthermore, you would also be able to take advantage of cheaper carrier services which can provide the same excellent service to you.

Supply chain visibility increases your company’s data-sharing capacities and this would eventually have a positive trickle-down effect in the way your operations are conducted on a regular basis.

Key Takeaway

Avoiding potentially disruptive and highly undesirable outcomes is what business delivery services aim for. One way by which they can achieve this is by incorporating a higher level of supply chain visibility into their operations. Not only will this model boost efficiency, lower costs, and gain customer loyalty, but this also helps your business run more seamlessly.

Adopting this model has several advantages not merely limited to the five which have been presented above. This guide has hopefully encouraged you to consider adopting such a practice in your day-to-day logistical operations.