Tive Webinar Series, Part 2: The Quest for Visibility and Resilience

In conjunction with SupplyChainBrain, Tive Founder and CEO Krenar Komoni recently presented a three-part webinar series titled The Quest for the Enlightened Supply Chain. In this second episode, “The Quest for Visibility and Resilience,” Robert Bowman—editor-in-chief of SupplyChainBrain—moderated a thought-provoking discussion among Komoni and two other esteemed panelists:

• Dr. Yossi Sheffi, an Elisha Gray II Professor of Engineering Systems and Director of the Center for Transportation and Logistics at MIT
• Art Mesher, Chancellor at CleanSL8.DNA
  
  

Topics of discussion included:

• Is the supply chain broken?
• How important is visibility in achieving supply chain success?
• How do we go about changing the culture of data sharing?
• Are there too many middlemen?

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“The Quest for Visibility & Resilience”

Access the On-Demand Webinar Now

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The State of Supply Chains

While much of the world seems to think the supply chain system is broken, our panelists believe the pandemic just pushed supply chains into uncharted territory and, in the process, made many companies realize they need to make changes in the future. Supply chains are “not broke; they are just woke,” Mesher said. “We’ve just woken up.” Komoni added that “supply chains were working the way they were working, an event (the pandemic) happens that for hundreds and hundreds of years events like this don’t happen, and they operated and interacted the same way they would’ve any time. It’s not that they were broken; they reacted.”

Cooperation vs. Competition

One of the keys to a successful supply chain is that different parties must work together. One of the problems with getting everyone in line is that the idea of working together and sharing information is counter to the mindset of being better than your competition. They all can see that conflict affects supply chains. “Not sharing visibility data doesn’t make any sense because you need to know what’s going on in the supply chain,” Sheffi said.

To Share—or Not To Share—Data

Komoni gave a perfect example of the problems inherent in data sharing: “There are times that a retailer buys trackers from us quite a bit. They ask, ‘Can I get the data?’ And what we have done because of privacy is we ask the actual supplier, ‘Are you OK to share the data with the retailer?’ Then, 99.9 percent of the time, they say yes. But we need to figure out some of these policies and standardizations so we can proliferate throughout the industry. I don’t think we’re there yet.” Mesher saw a contradiction in data sharing. “We are running from all the things we should be embracing,” he said, adding that ”Competitive advantage comes from maximizing your integration ability” and embracing variability.

Cutting Out at Least Some of the Middlemen 

There needs to be more data sharing, but all three panelists say the opposite about middlemen. Again, Komoni provides another prime example: “If you look (from) order to cash, a shipment gets delivered, we should be able to know it got delivered—the receiver should be able to pay the supplier immediately.” But that doesn’t happen. There are invoices, emails, and phone calls.“There are plenty of middlemen,” Komoni added.

Improvement Starts with Greater Visibility & Resilience

There are many gray areas in the supply chain and data sharing. Questions still need to be answered about how the industry can improve in both areas. To learn more about the insights shared in “The Quest for Visibility & Resilience Webinar,” access it on demand now. 

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Catch up on The Quest for the Enlightened Supply Chain webinar series by watching Episode 1 and Episode 3. 

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Visit the Tive Resource Center today for more on-demand webinars, videos, white papers, and research reports shaping global supply chain visibility solutions.

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