Supply chain communication: Turning Raw Data into Actionable Information

Effective supply chain communication means turning data into actionable information to help support all your supply chain operations.

Communication is essential to supply chains, and it represents one of the main areas of improvement for supply chains. Unfortunately, the world treats it only superficially.

Why is communication so important? Well, first of all, a supply chain is made up of many nodes, departments and silos of data. The system is complex, and it takes a lot of collaboration to make it work sustainably.

And then, you have the external communication channels, dealing with suppliers and other external organisations. For example, suppose you have local professionals working at different regional nodes of the supply chains. They have crucial knowledge and a deep understanding of the real-world constraints in their area, but all that information stays in their head. If your communication channels do not reach them effectively, they cannot give you ideas for improvements, and you run on old, burnt data.

?The Main Steps to Improving your Supply Chain Communication

1. Prioritise suppliers and suppliers' relations

Evaluate your suppliers' importance to your organisation and the impact they would have on your business if they stopped working with you.

Meet with your distributors regularly, or have a local professional keep a close eye on them. Make sure you are all on track.

You need to tackle all your suppliers' concerns and worries as they occur. Keep them updated with your progress, and make sure they keep you updated as well.

Learn more: How to keep a healthy, productive and efficient relationship with your suppliers

?2.???Support transparency of procurement and sourcing

Your procurement and sourcing teams should always know what is happening in your supply chain. Otherwise, they won't be effective in their roles.

3.???Agree on specific metrics with all your suppliers and stakeholders

In this way, you are all on common ground to measure your collaboration's performance and profitability. These metrics may include delivery times, sustainability standards, or specific process optimisations.

4.???Standardise some specific communication methods for your supply chains

No matter where from and how far away, your people should know where and how to get in touch with you in case something goes south.

Standardise these things, including a crisis communication procedure to be prepared for anything in this world of disruptions.

5.???Don't micromanage

Especially, don't micromanage your suppliers or logistics crews. Make sure you have professionals keeping good relations with all your stakeholders but don't micromanage or control them. You can gather data by hiring locals to watch and analyse your suppliers' performance, but try to do that with respect and maintain a friendly attitude.

The Risks of Poor Communication

"Shipment A has perishable goods, so it needs to be dealt with first. Shipment B can wait". What happens if this information does not reach the people it should reach? Costs.

Unfortunately, in situations like these, you tend to hold a single person accountable and not see the bigger picture, which screams "poor communication".

When people struggle to turn data into information, you will also deal with a loss of productivity, affecting profitability in the long term.

Poor communication can also lead to brand reputation damage, a lot of customer complaints and even revenue loss.

But what about the employees in a world where they are increasingly harder to find and keep?

Recommended read: The 2022 Supply Chain Labour Standards – A call for Change

?Communication with employees

According to a 2021 Gallup study, 85% of employees worldwide feel unengaged or "actively disengaged" in their work activities. This detachment can account for $7 trillion in lost productivity.

Even if employees are not working remotely, leaders might have a hard time engaging with them, getting their attention and fostering a certain sense of community.

This is where Employee Resource Groups come into play. ERGs are communities or small voluntary organisations within your company that represent specific categories of employees. They are led by employees and are meant to give every worker a sense of unity and purpose. ERGs can be related to lifestyle, interests, ethnicity, gender identity, religion etc.

90% of the Fortune 500 support ERGs by providing a budget, meet time and space to interact.

ERGs help with work inclusion, supporting unrepresented minorities in your workforce, creating a sense of community and purpose. In other words, people will feel better in their shoes at work.

What is more, ERGs can provide supply chains with data regarding reaching specific markets or audiences. You can more quickly check in on your employees when grouped in ERGs.

For example, the food producer Barilla have enlisted their network of ERGs into focused groups to identify the most at-risk social groups and find out how they can offer support towards recovery during the COVID-19 outbreak.

What is more, leaders can engage ERGs to find new talent or potential in the workforce. ERGs can help create a stronger work environment. People in small groups feel they can communicate their needs and wants more freely, and leaders can listen in more easily.

These are the first steps towards a more inclusive and stronger work environment based on healthy communication and good intentions.

?Toying with Data

Digitalisation is crucial for the future or supply chains, but it won't provide end-to-end visibility on its own. Visibility is a complex concept that includes product visibility, demand visibility, customer and supplier visibility. That's a lot of data.?

You need to integrate a lot of data models from a lot of places:

-???????External data from the world economy to local regulations, weather forecasts etc.

-???????Customer data centred on buyers' behaviour in-store, on Social Media, online

-???????Supplier data, as in available capacities, inventories, materials, availability, sustainability, responsibility

-???????Historical sales data

…and the list can continue. These are all data models, but where and how do you get all the data to populate these models? This data is stored in different departments and sometimes in other people's heads. You need to bring together these separate silos to make data work and bring a new dawn of digital transformation to your supply chain.

It's a huge challenge.

Data from Customers and Suppliers is Crucial

Probably the two most important types of data are customer and supplier data.

It's pretty challenging to create a customer profile when the sales data is lost in the empty void of wholesale. You need to gather this data from retailers all over the country or world. Otherwise, your customer profiles and behavioural analysis will be very thin, and merely guesswork.

The supplier data is crucial to the survival of a supply chain. It can influence the very production and manufacturing processes. It can greatly affect your image and sustainability metrics. In other words, beware of what type of suppliers you work with.

At the end of the day, you cannot do business without communication. We're not saying supply chain communication solves everything, but it surely does help.