SCRM Enhances Supply Chain Visibility

Having a good supply chain risk management program in place helps you complete your 360-degree view of your suppliers’ risk exposure. In combination with your supply chain control tower, your SCRM program should enable you to see the risk exposure of your end-to-end supply chain, including financial health and current and emerging threats.

Attaining full supply chain visibility requires functionality that alerts you to disasters and market changes that might affect your suppliers or transportation centers—which are integral elements of an SCRM program.

Improving supply chain visibility via risk management is no easy feat. But in the end, the payoff is worth it. Having full visibility, inclusive of risk, is the best way for you to maintain control of your supply network—and a supply chain risk management program that enables information sharing, disruption awareness and coordinated response is an effective way of getting the 360-degree view that you need. In other words: supply chain visibility without SCRM leaves you partially blind.

 

• Supply chain visibility is key for resilience, but poorly established in many organizations. According to a recent Gartner survey, only 11% of the companies have implemented technology for multi-tier mapping and visibility, yet 83% of respondents report that better supply ecosystem visibility is a top priority for them (Source: Supply Chain Visibility is fundamental to resilience in supply ecosystems, Gartner 2022). This is why an SCRM program fits into your supply chain visibility needs. Managing risk and gaining visibility go hand in hand for securing the availability and quality of products.
• According to the Business Continuity Institute, a majority of reported supply chain disruptions (58.8%) occurred with suppliers below Tier 1. This includes instances when companies were unable to identify the source of the problem. (Source: Business Continuity Institute, Supply Chain Resilience Report 2021). If you only include your direct suppliers when monitoring risk, you are missing much of the visibility needed to create resilient supply networks.
• In 2021, a reported 52% of companies did not have visibility into their supply chains below Tier 1 (Source: McKinsey & Company, How Covid-19 is reshaping supply chains, 2021). Make sure you add an SCRM program that enables sub-tier visibility to your business plan. That is one very effective way to increase end-to-end visibility in your supply chain, and that’s how you stay ahead of the competition.

• Build consensus with key stakeholders that SCRM is a vital component of business continuity.
• Understand that SCRM is a journey that involves multiple business processes and functions—and the time to get started is now.
• Consider adopting a solution to jumpstart your SCRM journey and benefit from proven best practices.