Improving Global Supply Chain Visibility through the Open Visibility Network (OVN)

The push for end-to-end global supply chain visibility has been steadily building for much of the past decade. However, the velocity of the movement to create visibility platforms has reached warp speed in recent years. Skyrocketing consumer demands, fueled by The Amazon Effect and the meteoric rise of e-commerce in general, are pressuring all facets of global supply chains to become more predictive and proactive, operate more efficiently, and deliver at the speed of technology.

The Open Visibility Network is taking global supply chain visibility to a whole new level. By integrating data and insights beyond shipment location and condition, this network of visibility and data partners that make up the Open Visibility Network will provide mutual customers with insights to increase resiliency and agility for a better end-customer experience.

The State of Global Supply Chain Visibility

Visibility and shorter cycle times are the table stakes needed to achieve growth, scalability, and ultimately consumer confidence in today’s competitive, increasingly complex, and global supply chains. As Charley Dehoney, a growth-focused executive and adviser, explains:

 “Visibility platforms have become the connective tissue that binds shippers, carriers, intermediaries, and all others involved in the value chain of logistics. Providing the technology layer that enables much-needed interoperability, a freight visibility platform becomes the single integration point for the various technology applications that are used to plan, dispatch, track and convey delivery and billing information for enterprise shippers.”

The scope of global supply chain visibility is also evolving. Companies are reaching beyond the traditional tracking points captured by sensors, including location, temperature, humidity, condition. Now they are adding tracking of business processes (for instance, purchase orders and payment terms) and environmental attributes (such as weather and traffic).

The Challenges of Poor Visibility Abound

Regardless of the mode of transportation used, improving on-time delivery and decreased damage to loads is top of mind for shippers, carriers, and logistics professionals. That quest becomes tougher when the global supply chain lacks end-to-end visibility. Common challenges include:

• A lack of supply chain planning, integration, and execution. 
• Inefficiency in organizing, processing, and managing data.
• Limited availability of useful insights due to technological constraints.
• A lack of synergy between automated systems and manual operations.
• An inability to predict and prepare for risks.

And while there is a growing number of global supply chain visibility providers, most are operating in silos. There was a great need for a single data model to aggregate detailed information from disparate planning and execution systems.

The Open Visibility Network: A Collaborative Approach to Benefit All Stakeholders

Here is an undeniable truth about global supply chain visibility: It is impossible for a single visibility player alone to achieve 100% coverage of all customers’ requirements. Especially when those needs encompass all modes of transportation — ocean, air, and trucking.

That is why Tive, a leading provider of real-time supply chain visibility insights, created the Open Visibility Network (OVN). OVN is a collaborative initiative among industry-leading visibility suppliers, including project44 and Fourkites — identified as Leaders in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platforms — as well as TransVoyant and Everstream Analytics.

Together this partnership of global supply chain visibility providers is making it possible for shippers, 3PLs and carriers to rapidly expand visibility and data insights without needing to add more applications, and they can extend this same convenience to their customers.

“It's all about the next level of customer satisfaction. If you can add an extra layer of visibility data on shipments, whether it is ELD/Telematics data from trucks, location data from vessels, transactional information at ports/terminals, or direct data from the Tive trackers — why not offer that to all customers?”  Tive Founder and CEO Krenar Komoni told Inbound Logistics. “To achieve 100% visibility across all modes of transportation, across all geographies, across all types of carriers, and across all various nodes (ports, borders, terminals) of the network, collaboration is the pathway. It's an inevitable part of bringing the best visibility to the customer in the shortest amount of time.”

The primary benefits of this collaborative approach are

• The OVN brings visibility and data insights from Tive trackers into the visibility portal or TMS the shipper or customer is already using.
• The integrations established by OVN partners afford visibility down to the SKU level and provide nonstop visibility from origin to destination.
• Facilitates better planning and improves supply chain efficiencies.

Mining Actionable, Real-Time Visibility Insights

The OVN is blazing a new frontier of global supply chain visibility, one driven by collaboration and rooted in deep integrations. Connecting shippers, carriers and 3PLs through the OVN ecosystem results in actionable real-time insights that help all stakeholders overcome challenges and proactively manage their customers’ ever-increasing expectations. To learn more about Tive and its flexible, scalable solutions that provide end-to-end global supply chain visibility, visit www.tive.com.