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Perspectives

Innovatively Addressing Challenges in Sourcing and Procurement

Written By: Julie Fancher
August 24, 2020
3 min read

Low-code technologies can facilitate quicker information exchange across an enterprise, getting the right information to the right people at the right time. These platforms can transform the way your company runs, impacting workers and performance at all levels.

In a time filled with constant disruption, organizations are starved for innovation. Low-code can help your business continue to run operations smoothly and adapt quickly.

Streamlining Processes

With constantly changing environments, immediate notifications are paramount to timely business matters. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a real-time view into your supplier’s inventory without having to wait for an email response? Wouldn’t it be even nicer to be notified about major changes in their supply? Low-code gives you that opportunity.

If you track supplier metrics on a low-code app, real-time reports can be generated and made available to stakeholders. This gives accurate, up-to-date visibility to leadership as it is needed.

In an effort to streamline their operations, one company that delivers medications by drones has leveraged low-code to expedite many processes, including asset management and supplier scoring. What was once managed in spreadsheets is now streamlined, allowing the company to ensure full transparency throughout the supply chain and lifespan of a drone — all on a low-code platform.

Real-time updates allow for rapid communication of changes in status, issues or policies. Through the use of a low-code application, a distributor can quickly notify you that your delivery is running late. This mitigates the need to check your email inbox or make a phone call just to track an order.

Accessing data stored across multiple legacy systems is time-consuming and sometimes complicated, but low-code makes it easier to manage supplier information all in one place. Information such as supplier contracts or performance can be viewed with a single touch, without needing to open multiple documents.

For example, a large material handling automation company found that recording the flow of custom machine parts on spreadsheets was both tedious and inefficient. Collaboration and accountability were especially difficult, leading to lost pieces and missed delivery dates. Using low-code, the company recently built a materials management app to track parts from their manufacture, through their purchase, and to the point of assembly. This switch heightened productivity and eliminated the number of lost parts and late deliveries.

Using low-code platforms to analyze data, supplier risk comparisons, and cost-benefit assessments eliminates the need for manual number crunching.

In turn, keeping digital data widely-accessible allows you to better predict and work through supply chain disruptions — an increasingly common issue. The more agile your procurement team, the faster they can adapt to disruption.

New Opportunities for Low-Code

Free your business from the constraints of legacy ERP systems by implementing low-code technologies, thus providing opportunities for change and innovation in your supply chain. This time of uncertainty and isolation calls for an expansion of a company’s digital presence, be it on the front-end or back-end.

A multinational food and beverage corporation found the sheer volume of data they dealt with to be overwhelming; additionally, government compliance was becoming more difficult to ensure due to complicated methods for tracking materials. With the help of low-code, the company can now track the origin of materials found in each individual package or can — providing a quick way to address any disputes regarding ingredients or compliance.

Consider the pandemic as a time of opportunity. While your company might have already applied low-code to tracking supplier quality assurance, have you considered also using it to record supplier compliance with health and safety regulations? Regulations created in response to Covid-19 add an extra layer of complexity to your supply chain, but can be integrated into processes swiftly and precisely through the use of low-code — ensuring compliance with any company, industry, or CDC guidelines.

Written By: Julie Fancher

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