The role of a supply chain professional is to predict the somewhat unpredictable. Since 2019, almost 70% of supply chain professionals have been continually responding to disruptions, according to Gartner. The past year of supply chain issues have further illustrated this point: The global supply chain is vulnerable, and organizations need greater insights to make themselves more resilient and agile in the face of the unknown.
With Microsoft’s new Supply Chain Insights, which is now in Preview, these pain points can become strengths. Design and fortify a supply chain for future disruptions while pinpointing risks before they turn into weaknesses.
Another Gartner survey, from 2020, found that over 85% of supply chain professionals are investing in software to help their organizations identify risk and weakness in their supply chain. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Insights is the answer.
Supply Chain Insights offers prescriptive analytics that leverage artificial intelligence to alert companies about potential risks with their warehouse inventory, suppliers, shipments and other supply chain elements.
Armed with these insights, companies can make more informed business decisions, collaborate more easily with their stakeholders and partners, fulfill demand on time and in full, and keep customers happy.
What’s Inside Microsoft Supply Chain Insights?
Microsoft Supply Chain Insights is an out-of-the-box solution, which means that you can begin using the solution quickly. It effortlessly connects to existing systems and uses Azure AI and machine learning to create informed predictions to empower your business. Supply Chain Insights will also be available as part of Microsoft’s Cloud for Manufacturing.
- Effortless Integration
Supply Chain Insights integrates easily with your existing planning and execution systems, breaking down traditional data silos and creating a digital feedback loop. Supply Chain Insights will constantly be refreshed with new data from your existing ERP system.
- Risk Prediction and Mitigation
One of the biggest roadblocks business leaders face when designing a resilient supply chain is a lack of visibility into potential risks, as well as the inability to prepare for future disruptions. Without this visibility, operations can stall or become bottlenecked, costing you time, money and unhappy customers.
Through Supply Chain Insights, organizations gain end-to-end supply chain visibility with real-time data.
Supply Chain Insights lets users see data for their first, second and third tiers of suppliers to identify potential issues and pivot quickly to mitigate any disruption. If one of your go-to suppliers is having trouble getting their material, you can look at which of your other suppliers could fulfill your needs quickly so you can still get your product out on time.
Another area where Supply Chain Insights provides greater visibility into is supplier performance. Identify which suppliers are consistently on time and which have historically been difficult to work with. These performance metrics can inform future decisions when you’re experiencing a disruption to your workflow.
Supply Chain Insights also assigns a risk score to your suppliers and your facilities. Risk is informed using weather data, environmental disasters and real-time news updates from Bing and other third parties. For example, if you have a warehouse in Florida, during hurricane season, this facility might have a higher risk score than one in a land-locked state. Users can click on the risk score in their dashboard to review a breakdown of what Supply Chain Insights is attributing the score to.
- Streamlined Collaboration
Another barrier to a successful supply chain is a lack of communication and clarity among collaborators at all parts of the process. With Supply Chain Insights, you can invite partners to contribute their real-time data and reporting. These collaborators can be suppliers, your suppliers’ suppliers, vendors and/or your customers. Determine what you want to share with one another and how often that information should be updated. With this information from all levels of your supply chain, you can make more informed decisions.
- Work Through What-Ifs
Create a digital twin of your supply chain to work through potential risks and what-ifs. Using advanced analytics with Azure AI and Machine Learning, you can perform simulations to see how certain constraints, weather-related events or geopolitical events affect your production process. Identify the best solution to those scenarios to increase your resiliency and maintain customer satisfaction.
Take a look at Supply Chain Insights.
As a Microsoft Gold Partner, Columbus Global has the experience and expertise to help you implement Supply Chain Insights at your organization.