Control Tower Technology Value Matrix 2018

Control Towers the Bottom Line

In 2018, control tower vendors continued to push the boundaries of what customers are ready to adopt, with tools and automation that only the most sophisticated users can leverage.

The challenge for vendors has become leading customers along the maturity path to be able to use the technologies available today.

Visibility in real time is still the ultimate goal for many customers, yet vendors are already making moves to connect planning with execution and deliver tools that help organizations start to automate the more laborious tasks, allowing more time for analysis and strategic decision making.

Control Towers Market Overview

Supply chain control towers are an increasingly vital tool for enterprises to gain visibility over their extended value chains.

Striving to be the connective tissue between planning and execution, control towers are increasingly an avenue by which companies start to modernize
and digitize their supply chains, cutting across organizational silos.

By the nature of the solutions and their reliance on real-time data, control towers inherently require organizations to move away from spreadsheet planning and disparate, disconnected systems.

In terms of value delivery, the bar for control towers is relatively low, since the solutions’ visibility is unprecedented in most organizations, where business processes don’t cut across traditional operational silos.

Organizations can achieve better collaboration with trading partners and logistics providers as well as identify potential issues sooner, allowing supply chain planning and execution to function more proactively rather than reactively.