Have Supply Chains Finally Achieved End-to-End Visibility?

Tive's CEO Krenar Komoni had the chance to sit down with Bob Bowman, Senior Editor at Supply Chain Brain, as a part of Supply Chain Brain’s Executive Briefing segment. 

During the interview, Krenar discussed end-to-end visibility and shared their perspectives on the future of supply chain management. Click here to watch the full interview, or read on for the highlights.

The conversation began with a discussion of the current state of end-to-end visibility, and what is now becoming possible thanks to new tracking technologies. Although the term “end-to-end visibility” is nothing new in the supply chain space, Krenar explained that “in order to digitize the supply chain, you need to know what’s happening in real time,” and today, “we can finally do the real-time tracking in transit” necessary to make end-to-end visibility possible.

Knowing what’s happening in real time enables immediate alerting when a shipment is in an unexpected location or condition, which enables managers to implement real-time responses. But that’s not the whole story. Rob further commented that in addition to alerts on specific events, “you also actually need data on what ‘normal’ looks like”, in order to analyze and optimize across your entire supply chain. True end-to-end visibility means not just knowing when something unexpected happens, but also having the contextual data to build a baseline for comparison.

Of course, as useful as data is, it can sometimes be as much a curse as it is a blessing. Rob and Krenar noted the danger of data becoming noise, and the challenge of finding the signal in that noise. Rob clarified that it is vital to have access “not just to data, but to data provided in context”. Real end-to-end visibility will only be possible when data is accompanied by useful analytics that enable supply chain managers to extract actionable insights from that data.

Finally, Rob and Krenar shared their perspectives on the future of the industry, and the timeline with which we can expect complete end-to-end visibility to become a reality. Krenar suggested that “with the speed at which these innovations are coming along” -- in IoT, in sensing technologies, in data analytics capabilities, and more -- “people will have to adapt very quickly”. Ultimately, he said, “end-to-end visibility and real-time tracking will enable a fully digitized supply chain” within the next five to ten years.

To learn more about the future of end-to-end supply chain visibility, read our white paper: Beyond Visibility: How to Build a Supply Chain That Thinks.