BI In The Supply Chain

Lots of companies use business intelligence to track their customers, help with compliance or tackle other operational trends inside the enterprise walls. But what about BI and supply chains? Turns out, supply chains don't lend themselves to analytics as much as many a BI pro might like.Supply chains rely on whole menageries of data definitions and disparate processes. They also require tough metrics design work. In short, there is no simple way to determine how well your company is doing in its supply chain. Ventana Research, through our sister publication Intelligent Enterprise, brings us a story with recommendations on how to unscramble the supply chain mess and bring it to heel for BI purposes.

Supply chain BI requires a definition of business goals and a specific targeting of individual supply chain-related processes first. Only then can a business case be made for intelligence within the supply chain -- or perhaps more accurately, only then can business intelligence be made to work in harmony with the supply chain management and ERP systems that most companies have in place already.