The Journey to a Unified Supply Chain

Carla Reed, Bill McBeath, Ann Grackin

Published on Sep 10, 2007

The accurate and timely sharing of strategy, planning, and execution information across the end-to-end supply chain has become critical. The elimination of trade barriers, and the move to massive outsourcing, especially to low-cost labor countries, has created globally dispersed "virtual corporations", often with hundreds of intertwined companies involved in bringing each product to market. To survive and thrive, it appears enterprises will have no choice but to "open the vault" and begin standardizing and sharing data. The new business reality requires synchronizing on a "single version of the truth" (SVoT) across multiple enterprises. To find out about current attitudes, plans, and actual sharing of data across multiple tiers of the supply chain, ChainLink Research surveyed 218 companies and interviewed senior supply chain executives from 30 firms across a diverse range of industries including manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and service providers (e.g. 3PLs). How different technologies support different aspects of SVoT: ERP/EAI, EDI, CPFR, Project Collaboration Systems, Exchanges and Networked Applications, GDS, RFID and the EPCglobal Network.