Supply chain resilience depends on more than the ability to access and analyze data. Data must improve supplier collaboration via data-sharing platforms to maintain alignment with business strategy. - BY Valerie Gomez

Collaboration with suppliers empowers both parties and relies on sharing and utilizing data. Technologies like blockchain, AI-powered predictive analytics, the IoT, and big data analytics enable real-time visibility into supply chain operations. However, collecting data and generating analytics for decision-making is incomplete without data-sharing platforms to support supplier collaboration.

Digital technologies and data-sharing platforms enable closer collaboration between organizations and suppliers, increasing supply chain resilience. By providing real-time data, enhancing communication, and leveraging advanced analytics, these technologies help organizations anticipate and respond to disruptions more effectively and meet customer needs. The result is a more agile, efficient, and robust supply chain that can withstand uncertainties and challenges better.

The Many Goals of Supply Chain Collaboration

Supply chain resilience is the “adaptive capability of a supply chain to reduce the probability of facing sudden disturbances, resist the spread of disturbances by maintaining control over structures and functions, and to recover and respond by immediate and effective reactive plans to transcend the disturbance and restore the SC to a robust state of operations.” Being able to manage disruptions got a lot of attention during the massive disruptions that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, supply chain resilience depends on more than the ability to monitor and respond to potential and actual disruptions. Resilience mechanisms include mitigating and managing risks, sharing real-time information, joint problem-solving, optimizing inventory levels, aligning production to meet organizational needs, improving environmental and social sustainability performance, and co-developing innovation.

A successful and resilient supply chain supports these activities and enhances organizational competitiveness. Two things are required: data for analytics and collaboration. Digital technologies and data-sharing platforms designed for communication with suppliers in the supply chain support both, increasing supply chain agility and adaptability through transparency and collaboration.

Data-Sharing Platforms Take Many Forms

Data-sharing platforms supported by advanced technologies enhance collaboration between organizations and suppliers by providing real-time information, improving communication, and enabling more efficient supply chain management. The role of these digital technologies in supporting an organization's supply chain goals is significant, as they increase supply chain agility and adaptability through transparency and collaboration. Choosing the system that best supports these goals is more challenging today because there are so many options, but there are systems designed for all sizes of businesses.

A high-level example of a data-sharing platform is the SAP Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration, which supports supplier planning, inventory, and quality management collaboration. It enables collaboration in many areas when integrated with the SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain (SAP IBP) solution. Forecast collaboration supports the automatic sharing of demand forecasts and inventory planning. The platform sends data and data analytics in two ways. SAP IBP sends a demand forecast to the supplier in the SAP Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration platform, and the supplier responds with a forecast commitment. The SAP IPB analyzes the commitment and shares a revised forecast based on the supplier’s commitment. The supplier informs SAP IBP of stock on hand, and SAP IPB analyzes the combined inventory to determine if planning adjustments are needed. At this point, the organization will engage with relevant suppliers to collaborate on a plan for the future.

Note that collaboration is digitally supported first but leads to human collaboration, like all data-sharing platforms. Relying strictly on data collection and analysis systems is not enough. Communication between people is inevitably required but can be virtual or face-to-face.

Microsoft Teams enables secure and efficient supplier collaboration using video, audio conferencing, and chat functions. Organizations adding new products can solicit and collect bids in SharePoint in a central place. When ready to procure from a selected supplier, the order can be shared directly from Sharepoint, including the purchase order, specs, Non-Disclosure Agreement, and contract. Microsoft Teams supports face-to-face collaboration with suppliers concerning forecasts, inventories, risks, and other issues.

Siemens Teamcenter is another example of a data-driven supplier platform that supports collaboration and streamlined product lifecycle management (PLM). It applies to businesses of any size, from start-ups to global corporations. It includes digital twins, a virtual representation of the organization’s real-world system, and can evolve in real-time. Digital twins can help organizations and suppliers quickly bring innovative products to the market. This system creates secure workspaces for supplier collaboration by providing suppliers with access only to the data a supplier needs, including product development data for collaborative decision-making. Siemens Teamcenter supports connecting with a supplier based on contract-driven data or a supplier collaboration portal supporting data exchange throughout product development. The collaboration platform offers a secure data exchange between suppliers and organizational functions like engineering or R&D, promoting innovation and reducing design re-works.

These examples show the varied approaches to digitization of collaboration in the supply chain. Additional options include IoT platforms like Cisco IoT, industry-specific platforms like Infor Nexus, and advanced analytics platforms like Tableau. Tableau is a platform offering visual analytics to create a real-time view of the entire supply chain, assist with problem-solving, adapt forecasts quickly, and share insights across the supply chain to enable collaboration.

Addressing the Challenges

Digital technologies are already pervasive in supply chains, but the impact of technologies like AI has yet to be fully experienced. Digital technologies streamline communication, enable rapid data analyses, support real-time data exchange, and enhance more effective coordination. Data-sharing platforms support more effective collaboration virtually and face-to-face by enabling the sharing of real-time insights.

However, organizations must still address some challenges, like data privacy between suppliers as well as between the supplier and the organization. For the supplier collaboration platforms to deliver the promised benefits, all participants need to regularly upgrade a solid technology infrastructure to ensure cybersecurity is always current and incorporate technological advances, like predictive AI and new cloud-based collaboration tools. Suppliers need the ability to use data-sharing platforms, too. Digital technologies do not stand alone. They need a support system and skilled users at the organizational and supplier levels.