Unlocking the Promise of Demand Sensing and Shaping Through Big Data Analytics

At the core of demand and supply alignment is an organization’s ability to acquire, interpret and use data that improves a decision maker’s vantage point and that supports profitability and growth.

The vast growth and ease of access to data during the past few years can provide new insight if the proper techniques and actions are deployed.

Demand-sensing, an integral part of the supply chain management process, can benefit from big data by supporting the identification of new business drivers that affect customer demand patterns and manufacturing supply capabilities.

Big data has the potential to improve demandshaping activities by creating alignment between demand and supply plans supported by current and anticipated risks and opportunities.

Big data can be defined as massive volumes of both structured and unstructured data that is so large that it’s difficult to process and analyze with traditional techniques.

It should be noted that this definition will likely evolve in the future as hardware and software continues to improve and provide more processing power.

Many organizations have limited insight into big data. These limitations may have significant opportunity costs and can have a negative effect on identifying and understanding customer demand patterns and related supply constraints.