Solving common supply chain communication issues with specialized digital solutions
The success of your business is inextricably linked to the performance of your supply chain. Even intermittent hiccups in replenishment schedules or minor inaccuracies in demand forecasting can quickly become sources of uncertainty, fulfillment delays, and major business risk. Keeping in constant contact with your suppliers and other vendors is the simplest way to avoid these issues. However, exchanging complex business requirements and important documents comes with challenges of its own. Here are a few supply chain communication issues that retailers commonly experience, and ways that dedicated digital solutions address these challenges.
Poor Document Management Many businesses rely heavily on email for a wide range of day-to-day business processes, including coordinating orders and invoices with their suppliers. While email is far more convenient than phone calls and conventional mail, it’s still a very inefficient and error-prone way to conduct business. Imagine creating a purchase order as a PDF and sending it to your supplier via email, only to realize that you forgot to attach the actual PO document! Or how about those times when you spend precious minutes hunting for the right invoice or PO through hundreds of emails? Maybe you saved the email attachments to a separate folder on your computer, and you’re not sure which file is the most recent version. Maybe you need to find out how many POs you sent to each of your suppliers this week… When you’re working against the clock to fulfill orders on time, these aren’t the sort of details you should be spending your time on.