Supply Chain Visibility through Web Conferencing

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It’s weekend and time for some reflections. Maybe slightly off-topic for this blog, but the other day I came across “Web Conferencing”, a feature-rich full web collaboration service, and it occurred to me how useful this tool is in Supply Chain Management. One of the core strategies in Supply Chain Risk Management is to increase Supply Chain Visibility, because optimizing individual links in a supply chain is of limited value if these individual links have little or no visibility of what is happening upstream and downstream. This will also assist in achieving Supply Chain Confidence, since all partners, stakeholders and operators within the Supply Chain are aware of each others whereabouts and doabouts, so to speak.

Collaborate without meeting

Many companies with global or far-spread departments and operations have already invested heavily in in-house equipment in separate meeting room or conference facility, but this is a very costly solution, if it is not used to the full. Is there a cheaper solution? Yes, there is. For instance, with Web Conferencing you can easily share and work on presentations and documents with participants from anywhere and to anywhere just using a computer and the Internet.

The same company also offers tools for Video Conference and Audio Conferencing, ranging from premium full-time operator assistance to so simple voice recording on CD for your archives. In my opinion, even such a simple and time saving tool could definitely be a lot cheaper in the long run than investing in high-end professional equipment, especially for smaller and mid-sized companies, who on an increasing scale compete in a global market, with an increasing need for easy-access collaboration tools.

Collaboration builds confidence. Confidence builds trust and with trust you are not afraid to share and make visible parts of your supply chain that you otherwise may want to keep to yourself. The more visible the supply chain is to everybody involved, the easier it is to discover and eliminate risks that otherwise may be hidden until they suddenly (and sadly) emerge. Being secretive about your supply chain will only hurt yourself.