ERP Visibility Tools: Visibility Built-in vs. Visibility Add-on

Posted by Brooke Lester on Mar 2, 2022 2:32 PM

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The pandemic has reinforced the need for supply chain visibility. Amid increased volatility, every business must implement technologies that show the real-time status of assets as they move along the supply chain. Without reliable visibility, it is difficult to deploy timely corrective measures and cushion the blow of disruption.

If you own or run an enterprise, you have probably encountered the shortcomings of limited supply chain visibility. Read on to uncover the importance of visibility and how you can achieve it to survive and thrive in today's dynamic business environment.

What is Supply Chain Visibility?

Supply chain visibility keeps an enterprise continuously aware of the movement of its assets throughout the supply chain. As a result, supply chain managers can instantly know where their ships, containers, trailers, and trucks are at all times.

Real-time supply chain visibility enables enterprises to:

  • Make timely, well-informed decisions about disruptions
  • Know well in advance if a shipment is likely to delay
  • Uncover trends in partner or facility performance and deploy timely improvements

Although visibility tools have taken several years to become reliable and effective, they are finally reaching their potential as a technology category.

The Importance of Supply Chain Visibility

Amid heightened disruptions, many businesses cannot control the numerous moving elements of their supply chains with enough accuracy.

Further exacerbating the situation are changing customer expectations. Customers want to know precisely when their items will arrive and monitor them at every step.

Supply chain visibility is the ideal solution for solving these complex challenges. Real-time visibility allows enterprises to view their entire supply chain on one platform and identify misalignments early. That way, they can react quickly and with the right level of information.

"Obtaining real-time visibility across all tiers in the supply chain can significantly increase speed to market, reduce capital expenditures and manage risk."

Jeff Dobbs, KPMG

How Can You Achieve Supply Chain Visibility?

An enterprise that can collaborate effectively, form solid internal and external relationships, and invest in the right tools has the best chance at achieving the greatest degree of visibility.

Here are three must-dos for reliable and sustainable supply chain visibility.

  • Collaborate effectively

Supply chain visibility is only possible in a collaborative ecosystem, where data management is integrated seamlessly across departments and organizations. Aggregating all the moving parts can help you better anticipate future demand and mitigate underlying supply risks.

  • Form robust relationships

Visibility requires uninhibited information sharing between enterprise functions and outside the enterprise. This level of information sharing can only be achieved with solid, trustworthy relationships within teams and between partners.

  • Invest in the right tools

With advanced visibility solutions, you can get an all-accessible, personalized dashboard of data, business metrics, and events across your supply chain. As a result, you can better understand, prioritize, and resolve key issues in real-time.

Visibility Built-in vs. Visibility Add-on: Which Approach is Best for your Business?

When laying down the technology you need to unlock supply chain visibility, you can choose one of two approaches: built-in integration or add-on integration.

An integration solution with built-in visibility comes pre-loaded with the protocols, tools, and applications necessary to ensure complete visibility. Meanwhile, an add-on approach entails acquiring the modules required to integrate specific partners and achieve targeted visibility.

Built-in and add-on integration are different approaches for achieving the same fundamental result: supply chain visibility. Therefore, depending on factors like strategy and financial breadth, an enterprise may incline toward one method over another.

When is Add-on Visibility Beneficial?

Many enterprises that are not ready to entirely replace their legacy solutions with a comprehensive integration platform may achieve the visibility they desire with add-on software.

When implemented with an EDI-capable ERP platform, the add-on facilitates inter-enterprise integration by providing the specific access points required to exchange data between partners.

Below are three benefits of add-on visibility over built-in visibility

  1. Rapid integration

Choosing add-on software over a comprehensive platform can save you significant implementation time, especially if you aim to address a particular visibility gap. You can achieve your goal without much modification to your legacy infrastructure.

  1. Flexibility

Going the add-on way gives you the freedom to alter the level and quality of visibility by merely updating or replacing the add-on software. You can get add-ons for connecting ERP and CRM solutions, as well as databases, text files, and protocols.

  1. Cost-effective implementation

The add-on approach enables you to pursue supply chain visibility in a more targeted manner. You can audit your supply chain, uncover areas that need improving, and deploy a solution for those particular areas.

When is Built-in Visibility Beneficial?

Although the add-on approach provides a fast, flexible, and cost-effective way to achieve supply chain visibility, integrating add-ons can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and ineffective, especially when end-to-end visibility is required. In this case, an integration platform with built-in visibility is more appealing.

Implementing integration software with all the tools necessary for end-to-end visibility can come at a relatively high initial cost. Nevertheless, many enterprises have realized high returns from their investment through lower platform management costs, faster partner onboarding, and more effortless scalability.

Read on for four advantages of built-in visibility over add-on visibility.

  1. No need for custom development

Add-on visibility can be a simpler, quicker way to achieve visibility. However, this simplicity can come at a high price, especially when the add-ons have been heavily customized to fit specific transactions, processes, or partners.

A comprehensive platform provides all B2B connectors and applications upfront, giving you quick and easy visibility and eliminating the need for extensive reconfiguring to accommodate new partners.

  1. Supply chain visibility that serves your entire enterprise

Modern integration platforms offer complete visibility through centralized dashboards that act as windows into all the transactions happening within your ecosystem. They deliver visibility not only to EDI and IT technicians but to the entire company, including non-tech business leaders.

Regardless of their role, anyone who needs access can quickly get transaction information and act on it accordingly.

  1. Well-informed business decisions

Built-in visibility focuses on holistic business outcomes rather than the accomplishment of independent tasks. It gives you a comprehensive view of supply chain processes and partners in one place, enabling you to see how one factor affects another and make well-informed business decisions.

  1. Support for faster and easier scaling

Adding new connectors every time you get a new partner can become exceedingly costly and time-consuming in the long run, limiting your ability to scale. Built-in visibility gives you every tool you need to integrate current and future partners, making onboarding easy and saving you both time and money down the road.

Let Remedi Help You Achieve Full Supply Chain Visibility

In today's environment, supply chain visibility consistently ranks as one of the most important elements to achieve maximum success. Top companies are leveraging advanced visibility tools to gain a formidable competitive advantage, and with the right approach, you can too.

If you are interested in boosting visibility or implementing a strategy to overcome supply chain challenges like sourcing consideration or risk management, you can look to Remedi for help.

Contact a Remedi expert today, and let's help you deploy the right visibility solution for your business.