The Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum and the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council recently did a survey on approximately 400 executives, many from companies worth more than $1B. They determined that while most organizations understand that supply chain collaboration should be a top priority, most have yet to achieve it.
“According to the survey results, the problem is pretty widespread. About 50 percent of the respondents said they were focusing on collaboration “at some level,” but that only 5 percent were actually doing it end-to-end. In addition, 75 percent said they have “no ability” or “an unsatisfactory ability” to extend and leverage their internal systems to suppliers and outsourced service providers. And 26 percent of respondents say they share customer data and insights with partners to enable innovation.”
The key to a synchronized supply chain is to extend processes to all trading partners to work off of one set of documents and eliminating errors due to losing a document or re-keying information into a secondary system. If an organization is not well-connected to their suppliers, forwarders, and Customs brokers, then this synchronized supply chain is not easy to achieve. Using automated solutions such as Supplier PO Management and Supplier Solicitation Portals from Management Dynamics new Trade Portals product line, can help you collaborate with your trading partners to ensure you don’t fall into that 75%.
New Modules for Supplier PO and Origin Management Improve Control Over Execution Processes and Allow Companies to More Easily Support Advanced Notification Requirements
EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ, December 8, 2009 — Management Dynamics, Inc., a leading provider of Global Trade Management (GTM) solutions, today announced the release of Trade Portals, a new product line to help companies extend purchasing, origin logistics, and compliance processes to their trading partners. By collaborating across a shared process with suppliers, forwarders, logistics providers and brokers, companies can reduce cycle time, lower supply chain execution costs, and better support compliance initiatives such as Customs 10+2.
As companies re-engineer their supply chains and shift production overseas, they often lose control over the procurement process, especially with regards to how it should integrate with their import compliance programs. Many importers face challenges when trying to manage a remote supply base. Examples include: coordination and management of confirmed orders, the monitoring of ship windows, coordination with origin logistics providers, and integration of the export transaction details with import entries.
Management Dynamics’ Trade Portals solution is comprised of three, on-demand, enterprise-class modules including Supplier PO Management, Supplier Solicitation Management, and Origin Management. It is designed to allow importers to configure these points of collaboration with key trading partners including suppliers, forwarders and customs brokers.
“With hundreds of suppliers and over 7,500 shipments to manage annually, we needed to empower our suppliers to review purchase orders and create shipments for approval,” John Wainwright, Vice President Customs Compliance, Leggett & Platt. “Management Dynamics’ Trade Portal solution helps us automate the workflow between suppliers and the shipment creation process – from point of purchase order, all the way through pre-customs entry – enabling us to centralize and streamline our global procurement process.”
Management Dynamics’ Trade Portal modules are highly configurable, on-demand solutions that can support multiple process variations with the following key capabilities:
Purchase Order life cycle management through shipment to invoice
State-of-the-art dashboard views and workflow tools
A multi-organization and role-based security model to organize suppliers and logistics providers by country or region and to establish standard operating procedures for each group
Multi-lingual support with language preference that can be assigned by user to improve supplier adoption
Flexible integration options including direct XML or EDI connectivity, spreadsheet uploads and web forms for manual data entry
Document generation engine creates all necessary supporting documentation prior to shipment that can be distributed via email with pre-defined rules
Integration with Management Dynamics’ Supply Chain Visibility, Trade Import and Trade Agreements solutions
“Top global supply chain operational initiatives today are focused on extending and synchronizing key execution processes with all trading parties,”said Nathan Pieri, SVP Marketing and Product Management for Management Dynamics. “Our new Trade Portals product line targets process gains in supplier collaboration and origin management to deliver key benefits of reducing supply chain execution costs and better supporting new security requirements like Customs 10+2.”
Free White Paper: For tips on how Global Trade Management (GTM) technologies can help you automate global operations across procurement, logistics and trade compliance business processes, please read our white paper on Automating the Import Supply Chain.