A new IDC white paper, sponsored by OpenText™ (NASDAQ: OTEX), (TSX: OTEX), reveals that one of the biggest gaps in supply chain efficiency is the adoption of modern digital technologies. As the study shows, the companies that are more advanced in their B2B (business-to-business) digital transformation journey outperform the less advanced ones in terms of revenue, profit, customer satisfaction, and speed of response.
Survey Highlights
Given the current supply chain complexity, global reach, and partner/supplier diversity, it has become clear that the ‘old’ ways of doing things do not work in today’s modern supply chain. This study demonstrates the resilience of digital transformation in the supply chain, with over 78% of respondents saying B2B integration has improved the overall performance of their supply chains1.
“B2B integration is the backbone of a digitally-centric, resilient supply chain and should be a top priority for organizations still burdened with manual, paper-based processes,” said Simon Ellis, program vice president at IDC2.
B2B integration is necessary for a resilient supply chain
While supply chain resilience is critical in today’s disruptive environment, companies have often found it difficult to fully describe the business case, justify the return on investment, and build the necessary internal capabilities. While 71% of organizations have increased investment in their supply chain, only 6% of respondents said they have reached the highest level of digital supply chain resiliency maturity3, indicating there is still significant progress to be made and value to be realized leveraging modern processes and digital technologies.
“Connecting, accessing, and analyzing the data generated by today’s digital supply chains to better manage your business is critical for most businesses today,” said Sandy Ono, executive vice president, and chief marketing officer at OpenText. “The latest findings from IDC validate that the future of supply chain is bringing information and automation together, and OpenText is proud to guide companies through these critical business transformations.”
Supply chain integration as a competitive advantage
Advanced supply chain integration capabilities can help support more efficient and effective current approaches as well as new models that directly impact business performance. When asked about the level of improvement in their supply chain through the automation of a range of different types of collaborative documents, 80% of respondents cited levels of improvement, including the cost of handling and sharing information, staff efficiency and improvements in Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)4. B2B integration capabilities and processing align with top business priorities of reducing operational and logistics costs, speeding time to market, improving data quality/accuracy, and enhancing transparency.
Recognizing the need for seamless B2B integration and a future-proof supply chain, OpenText offers a portfolio of end-to-end solutions through the OpenText Business Network Cloud. This network provides users with the power to automate business processes and enable efficient, secure and compliant collaboration between people, systems and things – providing a real foundation for establishing an advanced digital backbone to support business growth and transformation initiatives. By connecting to OpenText’s powerful suite of cloud applications via our secure, scalable, and highly reliable OpenText Trading Grid platform, users can enable internal and external stakeholders to collaborate seamlessly through this single and centralized network to complete transactions such as orders, shipping notifications, and payments exchange instructions.
“Simplicity, speed, quality and choice are at the heart of our approach, and OpenText Trading Grid has helped streamline key supply chain processes, reduced administrative burdens and improved our ability to onboard new suppliers to our network more quickly,” said Paul Wilkins, Head of Source to Pay at the Co-op Group. “Additionally, the ability for suppliers to electronically share information on inbound shipments via enhanced shipping notification allows our distribution center teams to plan and allocate resources more efficiently, eliminate paper-based communications and ensure improved inventory accuracy – helping to deliver what our.” Customers want when and where they need it, conveniently.”
AI and advanced analytics are essential for B2B integration
The study also highlighted the significant role of artificial intelligence and advanced analytics in B2B integration maturity. 44% of companies said they are currently using artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) to gain more predictive insights from across their supply chain. On the other hand, 17% of respondents indicated that they only use basic analytics5. Whether it’s B2B information sharing or the broader supply chain, the ability to leverage all available data is quickly becoming an imperative and a source of competitive disadvantage for companies falling behind.
