The Visibility Im­pera­tive in the Mas­sive­ly Multi­dimen­sional Supply Chain

Supply chain visibility remains an appealing yet elusive concept for most manufacturers.

These companies would almost universally acknowledge the significant benefits that would accrue from comprehensive visibility, yet the enormity of the task and the less than complete ability to articulate tangible benefits have made it difficult to move from concept to reality.

Many companies are gaining greater visibility into various elements of their supply chains, but they are doing it either as a facilitator for a particular business use case, such as product traceability in the consumer products industry, or as a by-product of efforts to improve collaboration with suppliers, customers, or third-party logistics providers.

Part of the visibility challenge is the ability to adequately articulate benefits, but another aspect of it is the lack of a good definition. It is the view of IDC Manufacturing Insights that being clear and precise about what we mean by visibility will enable manufacturers to be more successful in understanding and then communicating attendant benefits.

This Market Spotlight combines past research with current thinking about the challenges that continue to face manufacturers.

It also discusses how visibility defined, and then enabled through cloud-based collaborative networks, can be a powerful tool in both solving existing business problems and anticipating new ones.