Supply chains of the last few years have shown themselves as anything but predictable. Exceptions controlled them, and even after the pandemic-driven capacity crisis, multiple issues continue to plague supply chains.

Volatile labor issues, like the Port of Angeles labor negotiations, worker shortages, and unpredictable global conflicts are just some ongoing issues dominating supply chains. Shippers need to take control of their supply chains and deploy analytics to analyze past performance and predict future supply chain challenges.

Despite the need, less than 30% of supply chain professionals take advantage of predictive analysis to take control of crises.

What is Supply Chain Analytics?

Along supply chains are hundreds of thousands of data points. To manually compile and assess them is daunting, if not impossible.

Definition of supply chain analytics

Supply chain analytics is the efficient use of numerous data points and analytics to evaluate and optimize supply chain performance, improve inventory management, and improve customer service levels.

Overview of the three types of analytics

Supply chain analytics come in three types, each playing a different role of analytics in supply chain management. 

• Descriptive analytics: Descriptive analytics is a single source of truth that provides visibility across the entire supply chain. These analytics are provided to internal and external systems and data.

• Predictive analytics: Predictive analytics enables organizations to make predictions and forecasts about the future. The ability to anticipate outcomes or future scenarios creates the ability to minimize risk and mitigate disruptions.

• Prescriptive analytics: Problem-solving and enhanced collaboration are the results of prescriptive analytics. They help organizations collaborate with their partners to mitigate disruptions and their impacts on timelines and effort.

Ultimately, these three forms of analytics lead to actionable insights or analyses that bolster performance.

3 Strategies to Transform Supply Chain Data into Actionable Analytics

Data alone is not enough; it has to be transformed into actionable insights that organizations can implement to be valuable. Three strategies make this transformation possible.

1. Data standardization

Carriers' data is often non-standardized, making it difficult to determine carrier performance with KPIs or recognition of milestones. Before any value comes from data, it has to be standardized for an accurate side-by-side comparison.

When data is compiled from standardized data points, creating carrier scorecards based on the organization’s KPIs becomes possible. Milestone events become translatable when reduced to a few identical descriptions with supply chain management analytics.

The ability to rate carriers benefits future negotiations and allows shippers to utilize those carriers with the best cost-benefit trade-offs. The performance of ports, ocean carriers, ground freight carriers, and air freight carriers are accessible with accurate, standardized KPIs.

Decipherable milestones result in tracking and planning freight movement from data rather than based on guesswork.

2. Transform raw data into actionable analytics

Once data is compiled in a single, standardized format actionable insights are possible. Past performance analysis transforms present and future scenarios by understanding what has gone wrong or right in the past. Analytics supply chain management is the foundation of supply chain resiliency.

Shippers see past causality and pull that information forward to recognize events unfolding in similar patterns allowing for exception mitigation or outright avoidance of potentially negative outcomes. That current freight movement events are relayed in real-time translates into the ability to turn actionable data into immediate results.

3. Streamline software

An API that integrates with a shipper’s existing tech stack streamlines communication by exchanging data and interacting with separate applications. Internal and external systems are unified, contributing to more efficient workflows.

APIs supply automated real-time data to all supply chain stakeholders from a single source of truth – improving planning, saving time, mitigating risk, and improving customer satisfaction. Receivers acquire the ability to balance inventory levels against calculated ETAs, a crucial component of their effective use of operations management software solutions.

Looking to Stand Out From the Crowd, Smart Shippers Turn to Vizion API for Supply Chain Data Analytics

The deployment of supply chain management and analytics software enables shippers to understand their supply chain performance with a standardized picture using their customized KPIs. Past contextual data informs current decisions and future predictions where carrier performance and exception understanding are possible.

Shippers save money, improve communication with all stakeholders, improve customer satisfaction, and take control of their supply chains. Real-time information gives them visibility and the ability to immediately act as freight moves through the entire supply chain, from origination to the receiving dock.

Savvy shippers wanting supply chain visibility and resiliency turn to Vizion API for their supply chain data analytics. With Vizion API, they regain control over their supply chains and deliver for their customers while reducing workloads and saving money. 

See the difference analytics make for shippers. Book a demo with Vizion API today.