Undoubtedly, integrated supply chain is a dream of every company due to the fact that it sounds impressive. Not only has this, having an integrated environment within the company also meant to take advantages it offers. For instance, the pitcher and the catcher in the baseball game must communicate so that better results can be achieved. Based on this strategy, all the fielders need to position themselves so that some of them are closer while the others are far. If anyone in the team cheats, i.e. tries to take the position of the other, this is an alarming situation towards the non-integrated environment. Hence, the integration in the supply chain plays vital role as the following benefits can also be achieved;
- Greater profit margins for the companies
When it comes to taking advantages out of the integrated supply chain, gaining higher profit margins is one of the major ones. Where the supply chain is much relatable to the well-oiled machine, the companies find it easier to maintain and bring increment in their sales revenue and so their profit margins. With making the use of portfolio or product management software, it has become possible to assist businesses in developing a product and delivering it in speed and achieving higher success rate, thereby greater profit margins.
- Visibility achieved
Since integrated supply chain solutions refer to the process of developing cohesion and enhancing the connectivity, it brings the functions together so that collaboration can be promoted along with improved and enhanced connectivity. Making the use of IT solution is one of the ways that can assist in centralizing the cross-operational data that ultimately results in the cross-operational visibility. From collecting new insights in the supply chain, the benefit of gaining visibility within the entire supply chain also promotes integration.
- Minimized/ reduced or eliminated wastage
Where a business manages to let their team working with complete motivation for achieving one goal, it serves to minimize, reduce or eliminate the wastage completely. And this has been referred to as one of the major benefits. The reason behind is the fact that the member of the team who are working together no longer seems to support each other or say admire their efforts. Where a business continues with the non-integrated environment, the chances for making the wastage are high.
Think of it as an example according to which the two teams has their LTL (abbreviated as less than full truck load) to be shipped at the same time, sending them in isolation rather than choosing to go for the full truck load is completely a waste. Thereby, a step towards avoiding the culture of non-integrated environment. Where there are different teams in an integrated environment, employees or those responsible must work together for greater savings and avoid both redundancy and waste.
- Centralization of data
Alongside waste and redundancy, an integrated environment is further beneficial as it serves in increasing the visibility of data which can easily be afforded as a result of developing centralized cache. Although being a great thing, the data centralization also assist in moving the way for the updated analytics workflow. Thereby, helping out in revealing the areas of operational inefficiency with the solutions that will also help in bringing improvement in the overall supply chain efficiency.
In order to maintain the success of any business, it is essential to have an integrated supply chain maintained. The benefit of achieving added flexibility is also something worthy along with managing to cut the cost without making one lose the quality. The companies that intend to stay competitive and gain competitive advantage over the others, choose to go with the requisite strategy for the companies.
