“What we’re starting to see,” says [Karl Manrodt, Associate Professor at Georgia Southern], “is senior management … trying to understand what those metrics are and should be.” The desire to monitor one’s own performance, so prevalent in school, never really goes away. At the same time, “it’s important for us to communicate what’s critical … to customers and suppliers. Let’s manage to that.”

Unfortunately many supply chain teams struggle to access data in multiple sources and formats and do not have access to the latest business intelligence tools. Implementing a Performance Management solution that integrates with your supply chain visibility and trade compliance processes can give companies the insight to make better-informed strategic decisions and improve supply chain performance.

Look for a Performance Management solution that offers several important capabilities:

• A portal to schedule reports, alert users when new reports are available and to distribute polished deliverable documents.
• A dashboard to provide a consolidated view of key performance indicators and reports along with extensive personalization options.
• A complete set of  standard reports to manage key metrics such as cycle time, trading partner performance, landed cost, and data quality.
• An ability for users also have the ability to create their own customized reports.
• A web-based reporting tool to perform ad-hoc queries and multi-dimensional analyses with the ability to drill to operational details.
• Easily customize reports by dragging and dropping data, inserting calculations, and adding graphs.

For more details on the study, please read this article on SupplyChainBrain (includes a link to a video interview).

Nearly nine in ten shippers (88 percent) said that IT-based logistics services are important, but only 42 percent said they are satisfied with the capabilities of their provider. As a result of this IT capability gap, the study authors said, shipper respondents reported a lack of the key performance indicators, alerts and visibility required for an adaptive supply chain, and 3PLs reported similar difficulties in getting the data and commitment they need from shippers.

Global supply chains are complex, inter-connected systems that must be managed by establishing key performance indicators, measuring the process, analyzing results and developing strategies to continuously improve performance. Unfortunately many supply chain teams struggle to access data in multiple sources and formats and do not have access to the latest business intelligence tools.

A Performance Management solution for Global Trade Management can unlock a wealth of operational data that is available in supply chain visibility and across key export, import and trade agreement processes which span from order to final delivery. Users across various functions can access Performance Management to run Web-reports or manage key metrics through scorecards.

Each department can then access their performance monitoring reports to manage service providers such as suppliers, forwarders, and brokers as well as manage critical process cycle times. By sharing operational data and inter-linking metrics across compliance, logistics and procurement domains, supply chain managers can make better data-driven decisions and manage cash-cash cycles.

Best-in-class companies have been able to realize the following benefits after implementing Performance Management:

• Shift from tactical decision making to continuous improvement programs based on Lean principles
• Restructure supply chain and proactively manage business partner SLAs
• Access one aggregated source of cleansed data with all key dimensions