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Broader supply chain visibility and timely, fact-based decisions for better market share and unprecedented growth.
Streamlining the supply chain means managing multiple complex factors all at once, in real time – optimizing inventory, streamlining transportation and delivering on time, every time.
The supply networks of present-day enterprises don’t just transport raw materials and products from one place to another but do so much more than that.
The supply chains now act as the nexus between a digitally coordinated information ecosystem and the network of suppliers.
The ongoing COVID-19 disruptions have severely impacted the supply networks across industries due to which businesses are under significant pressure to enhance supply chain visibility.
In addition, customer demands for faster response times have also prompted businesses to focus on effective supply chain management.
Top insights derived from a supply chain analytics dashboard
1. Cash-to-cash time cycle
The cash-to-cash time cycle KPI helps calculate the period required between the moment a business pays cash to its suppliers and the moment it receives cash from its customers.
This invaluable supply chain metric guides you to run your business with less money tied up in operations.
2. Freight bill accuracy
Billing accuracy is essential for profitability as well as customer satisfaction, so tracking this metric will help you spot detrimental trends and improve your overall shipping accuracy.
You can calculate freight bill accuracy by (error-free freight bills / total freight bills) * 100.
3. Perfect order rate
The perfect order rate measures the success of your ability to deliver orders incident-free.
This insight helps you iron out issues such as inaccuracies, damages, delays and inventory losses.
The higher the perfect order rate, the better, because this KPI has a directly proportional to retention and loyalty levels.
4. Day’s sale outstanding
The days sales outstanding (DSO) KPI measures how swiftly you can collect or generate revenue from your customers.
A higher DSO level indicates that a company is selling its product to customers on credit, which can stunt cash flow and minimize profits.
By calculating this periodically, you’ll be able to collect revenue faster and more efficiently.
5. Inventory turnover
A supply chain analytics dashboard can help businesses understand the number of times its entire inventory has been sold over a certain time frame.
This helps in efficient production planning, process strategy, fulfilment abilities and marketing and sales management.
6. Gross Margin Return on Investment
The Gross Margin Return on Investment (GMROI) offers a clear representation of the gross profit gained against the average investment made in your inventory: a calculation achieved by dividing the gross profit by the average inventory management.
By tracking this KPI monthly, you’ll quickly gain an insight into which items in your inventory are poor performers and which are worth investing.
7. Supply chain costs vs sales
This indicator helps you calculate your supply chain costs as a portion of sales and, in essence, it will help you know how much you are spending.
By calculating such supply chain management metrics, you will be able to gauge a healthy spend analysis and establish processes in the future for potential savings.
8. Inventory velocity
Inventory velocity or IV provides a visual representation of the percentage of inventory that’s projected for consumption within the next period or quarter.
The IV is a KPI that will help you optimize your inventory levels, give a greater chance of meeting consumer demand and prevent you from wasting money on excess levels of stock.
9. Return reason
This metric offers insight into the various reasons causing your customers and clients to return their orders – a piece of information that is vital to any e-commerce business.
Presented in a visually appealing format, you will be able to identify your areas of weakness, examine the quality of critical areas of your supply chain process and make the kind of improvements that will enhance not only your reputation but your overall service.
With this intelligence, you can significantly decrease returns, boost profits and improve cash flow as a result.
10. Inventory days of supply
Inventory days of supply is useful for an accurate calculation of the number of days it would take you to run out of stock if it wasn’t replenished.
By tracking and examining this stream of data on a regular basis, you will be able to prepare for and avoid any out-of-stock situation, saving your brand reputation and cash flow in the process.
A few examples of supply chain analytics dashboards
Data visualisation tools help you can create stunning supply chain analytics dashboards with the essential KPIs in just a few clicks.
1. Supply chain KPI dashboard
This supply chain dashboard example uses KPIs to show the long-term health of your operations.
2. Shipping status dashboard
This supply chain dashboard provides insights into your current status so you can anticipate the worst and perform to your best.
3. Warehouse order performance dashboard
This supply chain dashboard provides intelligence on your shipping operations to allow you to hone in on which parts of your supply-chain are causing issues.
Powerful supply chain dashboards for purposeful reporting – a few tips to consider
Firm data management is a complex task which is both interdependent and interconnected.
Digital transformation means important data becomes digitized in interconnected clusters.
For instance, inventory metrics need to be paired with sales data and increasingly granular time periods in order to produce a full list of actionable KPIs on a manager’s dashboard.