How business intelligence is helping global businesses succeed

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In today’s always connected and hyper-competitive world, growing market share is a challenge for any organisation. Industry leaders understand that to get an edge over their competitors they need new and better insights into their business to help identify hidden risks and mitigate them and inform their decision making in everything from finding supply chain inefficiencies to uncovering new avenues for sales.

Having actionable intelligence can be the difference between success and failure, but sorting through the wealth of data every modern global business generates is a complex task and it is too easy to miss a critical information point. Business intelligence platforms help companies sift, sort, and process this data into different types of reports with actionable insights that highlight any weaknesses to address and strengths that should be built upon.

Here are four ways business intelligence can help a global business find success.

Help with product pricing

Pricing a product or service can be a difficult question. Business leaders need to find a price point within a specific market that is sufficiently low to attract new customers away from their competitors, but sufficiently high that they can drive profits and create a growing and successful company.

It is difficult enough to try and determine the best price within a single geographic market, such as the UK, but when you look to expand the business abroad, each geographical market has its own unique set of economic and market factors that need to be taken into account. The company will need to set a different price targeted to each local market conditions, and business intelligence can bring together all the relevant data and help stakeholders find the best pricing strategy for wherever they plan to launch.

Identify supply chain efficiencies and weaknesses

Modern supply chains cross continents, and a few days delay at a port in China or a ship that has taken a wrong turn can have roll on impacts throughout a business. The data at each point in this supply chain may be stored in different systems that may be region or sector specific, and trying to combine all that data can be a slow and laborious process.

Business intelligence platforms can help companies integrate these disparate sources of data and create insights such as where in the supply chain is the weakest link and where companies should possibly look for backup solutions should issues arise, and also where stock is left sitting in warehouses for long periods, costing money for storage and creating expensive inefficiencies.

Nurture customer loyalty

The sales and marketing investment required to find new customers is expensive, and so all businesses need to nurture their relationship with the current customers to maintain profitability. These relationships are more challenging to maintain for businesses with overseas operations, as priorities and social niceties vary significantly from region to region, with what some would consider good manners in one country sometimes considered rude in another.

The leader of well established global company understands that standardised customer engagement programmes often do not work well across borders, and local solutions need to be devised. However, maintaining a variety of different programmes around the world is burdensome and it can be a struggle to compare how each performs.

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Separating Long-Term Supply Chain Technology Developments from Temporary Industry Disruptors

While technological innovations can revolutionize how supply chain businesses advance, it’s important for all participants to be a little bit skeptical when supposedly new game-changing technologies are introduced.

Third-Party Providers Navigate Supply Chain Technology Trends

Technology partners with a long-game approach to development and implementation understand that trends come and go, and it can make little sense to heavily invest in trumpeted technological advancements just because they’re “the new thing.”

While technological advancement brings with it solutions that can revolutionize how businesses in the supply chain interact, it’s important for all stakeholders to be a little bit skeptical when any company introduces a supposedly game-changing new technology.

First Adopters of New Technology

3PLs are typically the first adopters of new technology, as a huge part of their value proposition to their clients is their ability to utilize advanced technology to solve their supply chain challenges.

These logistics providers constantly keep their ears to the ground attending conferences and researching the latest technologies seeking new capabilities. 3PLs can make a single investment in technology and leverage that capability across many shippers.

Technology Partners

Technology partners aren’t simply there to help companies adapt to new technologies. Technological advancements in the supply chain have brought increasing amounts of logistics data to industry stakeholders.

This has, in turn, led to a jump in advanced analytics to turn that data into actionable information, a skill in which technology providers excel. Shippers are using analytics in conjunction with real-time visibility data to identify bottlenecks within their own processes and providers’ networks. This visibility allows them to estimate when shipments will arrive at the intended destination with greater certainty. The future is very bright in this area due to improving visibility technology, more advanced analytics, and integrated collaboration tools.

Technology Advancements

Rapid advancements in technology are changing the industry for the better, and at SMC³, our goal is to incorporate these new technologies into the supply chain processes of our clients. SMC³ truly is a neutral third party; we work for the good of the entire supply chain, helping supply chain companies separate lasting supply chain advancements from temporary industry disruptors.

SMC³ accomplishes this flexibility and adaptability by building our solutions for fast, painless integrations to TMS systems and other applications. SMC³’s goal is always to help our clients get up and running as quickly as possible, so they can start consuming data via our solutions and begin to optimize the lifecycle of their LTL shipments.

Read more at Separating Long-Term Supply Chain Technology Developments from Temporary Industry Disruptors

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