Increased visibility improves business performance. Today’s fast-moving, ever-changing business environment demands faster responsiveness to changes in the market, product innovation and supply chain events. Ignorance is one of the greatest threats to a distribution company’s health and success. Executives and senior managers must understand how the enterprise is meeting strategic objectives. Middle-level managers need visibility into how they are performing against tactical objectives. Responsible individuals must be notified immediately when supply chain issues threaten the completion of objectives, so actions can be taken to ensure customer delivery and service expectations continue to be met.

A well-implemented and effective business solution delivers overall visibility into the health of the company and its operations and provides detailed information for performance measurement, process management, and problem identification and remediation. Such a system can help improve revenue through competitive advantage, helping you understand your business and manage it better, reduce operational costs, improve performance and improve results for all stakeholders—owners, executives, managers and employees.

An enterprise business solution will capture literally thousands of pieces of information each day, as activities are reported throughout the extended enterprise. All of this detailed data is of little use without placing it in context and seeing each activity in relationship to all the other activities and the overall plan. To turn data into meaningful information is an up-and-down process. Bits of data, taken together and summarized, form higher level contextual information that shows status, accomplishments and importance. From high-level summaries, the observer must be able to drill down to details to understand exactly what is happening and how to drive those activities toward the goals and objectives.

Management information and analysis is only as good as the data it is based on. Therefore, data must be collected as quickly as possible and with the least amount of human intervention, which tends to introduce delays and errors. It is equally important to collect data from supply chain partners through automation. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the most commonly used method today but EDI is rapidly being replaced by XML-based e-commerce communications, SOA web services and Web-based portal technologies. New technologies allow almost continuous tracking of goods in containers, containers in trucks and rail cars, and trucks on the highway to an extent unimaginable only a few years ago using RFID and GPS tracking. The major package delivery companies have re-branded themselves as logistics service providers to reflect the expanding array of information services now available from labeling-billing devices that can be integrated with your own systems to web-based tracking and enhanced en-route services to help you stay aware, and in control, right to the point of delivery.

All systems should be integrated so information can pass freely between them without manual re-entry. Many distributors are left with “islands of automation” after implementation of specialized information systems in isolated portions of the business over the years. While each contains valuable information, absence of integration prevents the effective use of that information for overall management and coordination of effort toward company objectives.