Risk Management Whitepaper

Too Much at Stake: New Sources of Supply Chain Risk

Multi-tier demand-supply networks are quickly replacing the vertically-integrated supply chains of a decade ago. While globalization and outsourcing can mean lower-priced labor and manufacturing, it also means increased supply chain complexity, and less visibility and control for the main enterprise. With factories and operations across the globe, unplanned events and supply chain disruptions are more likely than ever—and also more difficult to control and respond intelligently to.  

"Over the past year, 58% of companies suffered from financial losses as a result of supply chain disruptions." Aberdeen Group | Supply Chain Risk Management: Building a Resilient Global Supply Chain

Developing and implementing supply chain risk management strategies today is imperative to exiting the recession on top. To start with, this means assessing your current risk factors—from small to large supply chain disruptions—and then developing strategies to manage them.

E2open Multi-Enterprise Solutions provide the functionalities needed to effectively manage the risks inherent to today’s international, multi-enterprise supply chains.

Enabling Real-Time, End-to-End Risk Management

Effective risk management is inherently an end-to-end process. It requires real-time visibility and collaboration across multiple tiers of trading partners, regardless of trading partner protocols or technical sophistication. A risk management strategy must also extend to both the buy and sell sides, managing and responding to supply chain disruptions whether they occur at the supplier, distributor, or even in-transit.

E2open offers the technologies needed to execute an effective, end-to-end risk management strategy. By leveraging products from our Supply Network, Demand Network, and Outsourced Partner Network Solution suites, you can create a risk management strategy specifically tailored to meet the unique needs of your business. Because all E2open technologies are delivered via a SaaS model, we ensure rapid deployment and trader partner onboarding, a lower TCO, and fast time to value. Additionally, E2open handles 100% of ongoing operations and partner community management.

• Supply Network Solution – An on-demand, multi-enterprise solution that provides complete visibility across all buy-side processes, including order management, VMI, forecast collaboration, and shipment tracking. These inter-enterprise processes are fully automated, and can be viewed and manipulated in real time. Any supply chain disruptions are automatically flagged, enabling you to respond intelligently before the effects reach the end customer.

• Demand Network Solution – An on-demand, multi-enterprise solution that provides complete visibility across all sell-side processes, including order management, customer-facing VMI, forecast collaboration, and shipment tracking. These inter-enterprise processes are fully automated, and can be viewed and manipulated in real time. Any supply chain disruptions are automatically flagged, enabling you to respond intelligently before the effects reach the end customer.

• Multi-Enterprise Business Intelligence – This suite of products provides sophisticated reporting capabilities, enabling you to analyze and manipulate data on supplier performance and business process execution. Products can be used to locate primary sources of risk, so that actions can be taken to reduce risk and improve efficiency. Standard and configurable reporting are available, as well as external data warehousing integration, are available.