How great is the relationship between global events and your business/data integration work? Some would claim there is a rather strong relationship and others might claim that the correlation is not so strong. But of all the global turmoil take just one event this year and imagine this situation...
Your company makes a product with a few component inputs sourced from Japan, and given the utter death and destruction caused by a natural disaster, these component parts stand to have your production down for who knows how long. Here is where integration and collaboration professionals and their developed solutions come into play to determine your supply chain visibility. How much product (components) is on the boat from Japan, when will this stock run out, who/where are your alternative suppliers, are there gaps in component flow, and if gaps how long will production be down? If down, what is the financial impact to your company and shareholders?
These are all very real questions and some that were asked of my neighbor by his boss(s) after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster most recently. Fortunately they had built the integration solutions to answer many of these questions, though there were some gaps and they were forced to suspend production for a period of time.
This is just one example of many scenarios outlined in our most recent edition of "THINKRONIZATION". Take a look at the March edition for more on our correlation analysis and other integration items of interest outlined in the newsletter.
