Benefits of Advanced Analytics in Supply Chain Management

By CIOReview | Monday, June 29, 2020

The current scenario demands an improved supply chain visibility to achieve a smooth business workflow. The advanced analytics aims to eliminate the existing problems of supply chain management with their predictive and problem-solving techniques.

FREMONT, CA: Whether the business runs on a small scale or it is a large enterprise, its growth relies largely on the performance of its supply chain. Market studies reveal that several manufacturers are lagging in the race of implementing modern analytics in their supply chain. Companies either fail to realize the importance of supply chain analytics or do not understand which analytics are apt for them and how to face the shortcomings of the specific analytics.

To understand the potentiality of the analytics, we must understand the various types of analytics and compare and contrast them. The primary types of analytics include;

Descriptive Analytics comprises the historical reports and measures. This type of analytics only provides information about past activities, which cannot be directly used for decision making.

Diagnostic analytics is one step above in the hierarchy, providing useful insights into why specific problems occurred. So this helps in determining the reason but does not offer the solution.

To do away with the inadequacies of the historical analytics, advanced supply chain analytics are implemented, which mostly comprise predictive analysis and prescriptive analysis. Using mathematical algorithms, predictive analytics predict a future mishap with enhanced accuracy.

Isn't it very convenient when one cannot just predict the upcoming issue but also know the solutions to mitigate the problem? This is where prescriptive analytics plays its role through its models and software that run the complex conditions and provide the optimum supply chain solutions to fix the issues determined by the former analytics.

Understanding the benefits of analytics for one's business

What is most important is that how beneficial are the technologies for one's specific business. In some cases, the analytics might only project the shortcomings of their business and not provide any useful solution. This is where companies need to realize that advanced analytics have the edge over the historical ones. Using the predictive and prescriptive analytics, determining future trends of the supply chain and its directions is easier. The solver software analyzes thousands of problematic conditions and offers a comprehensive solution to it.

With the voluminous data today, the supply chain and their networks are no more a simple layout. The entire network can fail if one node underperforms. So incorporating the advanced analytics in the supply chain is a prime requirement that can help to examine alternatives in a short time frame and provide the best solutions to optimize decision making for the supply chain.