GTM Best Practices

Finally.   After ten years of hype surrounding Supply Chain Visibility (SCV), I am seeing  mainstream adoption.  Sure, many ‘earlier adoptor’ companies took the plunge during the go-go days of 1999/2000, then the market flat-lined post-bubble. Nobody had investment dollars to spend on projects numbered 2, 3 and 4.  The big enterprise app companies were doing a good job soaking up the cash and attention of most IT teams.

Roll forward eight years and the market is ramping up based on two key trends:

1. the shift to Direct Procurement models of global sourcing; and,
2. the increased accountability of importers with regulations such as the Importer Security Filing (ISF), affectionately known as Customs 10+2.

Fundamentally, the advance of low cost sourcing strategies is challenging the old forwarder/spreadsheet business process that many Importers have employed.  Importers must extend business processes, collaborate with trading partners, and control the flow.

This is driving new demand for SCV.  Importers need to first model their supply chain network and connect trading partners.  Here, it makes sense to work with a solution provider that has a ‘pre-integrated’ network of trading partners and a defined process for on-boarding and certifying connections.  Most companies will have 50 to 100 trading partners (not including suppliers) and without a solution provider that really knows what they are doing, this can become an incredible burdern for the IT team.  

As part of this process, many companies will front-end multipe ERP systems to created a ‘shared service’.  So, across logisitcs, purchasing and distribution, there is only one global system that tracks orders and shipments.  This is a remarkable simple, yet critical step in centralizing a supply chain process and efficiently coordinating efforts.

The next step is to use SCV as part of a business process.  Early implementations were focused on the expediting use case: eg., I don’t have my stuff, so where is my stuff?.  In some companies you can have multiple FTEs expediting orders and paying for premium freight, so there is a baseline value-prop. But this is only the start.

Visibility is rapidly evolving into the Business Process Management (BPM) solution for Global Trade.  By building on a strong foundation of connectivity, data quality management and event management, importers are nowmoving beyond searching for status to executing and end-to-end process.   

For those importers challenged to implement a Direct Procurement strategy, this type of solution offers the ability to:

• Manage the order cycle through a supplier portal
• Montior ship windows and perform shipment planning
• Control the production and distribution of shipping and export documentation
• Coordinate logistics with origin forwarders