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In an environment where disruptions are frequent and costly, the ability to accelerate time-to-decision has become a defining competitive advantage. This requires more than connected systems – it demands unification of data to provide a single view that supply chain managers can rely on for better decisions. Real-time unified data enables the shift from visibility alone to enable AI ready data for true decision intelligence that helps leaders model scenarios, anticipate disruption, and act pre-emptively.

The difficulties of pulling together many types of data

In many enterprises, however, the sheer number of data sources makes achieving a single view of the supply chain very difficult without a change in data architecture.

If we consider the data sources an enterprise-level supply chain organization should unify, the list includes the platforms of multiple suppliers and partners, internal CRM, ERP systems, and warehouse or transportation management systems.

Other organizations want to use data from networks of IoT devices, and from news, weather, and business data feeds supplying minute-by-minute market information. The list can be extremely long, but an organization must make sense of it all very quickly if decision-making is to be as effective as possible when faced with disruption.

Unfortunately, this information is in many different formats and includes significant duplication. A global organization may have as many as 30 different ERP systems that give multiple versions of data about a single SKU, for example. All this information must first be cleansed and harmonized before supply chain managers use it to make swift calls on how to resolve a bottleneck.

New data architecture to increase decision speed

Organizations can, however, achieve significant gains in speed and agility if they adopt a new type of data architecture – a data gateway – that is able to cleanse and unify data without the need to replace existing systems. This approach is a collection of different technologies that are brought to the data, rather than the other way round, as with conventional approaches. The effect is to simplify the complexity of the systems already in place.

From the unified, single data plane, managers can see right along the supply chain, spotting costly bottlenecks to improve end-to-end efficiency. A supply chain planner, for example, gains accelerated access to customer orders and transport schedules in a single place. Forecasting and demand management are far more accurate because of the unified data behind the applications that managers use.

In the FMCG and CPG markets, for example, where demand can be highly volatile, logistics managers have the realtime insight they need for quick decisions – reducing lead times and costs while improving customer satisfaction.

AI for faster decisions

One of the advantages of a data gateway is faster implementation for AI applications. Siloed supply chain data becomes more easily available, including through lowcode or no-code access, which reduces

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