If you are managing a large supply chain with global products, global flows and many partners one of your biggest challenges is to set up a centrally managed system that gives you control and lets you optimize local execution by many different partners. Sharing information in the right way is the key to success.

Typically there are three major groups of supply chain participants with widely divergent needs for up-to-date information and communication:

1. In the transport arena, there are supply chain managers and logistics/transport managers who are concerned with transport planning, booking and tendering, as well as controlling invoices, goods and customs processes.

2. In the financial arena you find CEOs, financial controllers and transport/logistics managers who need to control invoices and manage self-billing, cost allocations, bookkeeping, planning, simulation, reporting and analysis – preferably all seamlessly integrated with their financial system.

3. The demand arena is where you find everyone who is close to the current and future needs of your customers. Besides supply chain/logistics/transport managers you will also find managers in charge of sales, marketing and customer service. Their concerns include tracking and tracing goods and invoices, as well as communicating with customers – preferably before inquiries or complaints arise.

Naturally, every one of these dispersed professional groups will have one or more systems at their service, interacting to some extent with the others. But will they get the information they need to optimize the entire logistics flow? This is the starting point for UnitedLog’s Control Tower concept, which strives to cover all your needs within inbound and outbound logistics.

Analyze the needs in your chain

Many people are familiar with Abraham Maslow, the psychologist who developed a hierarchy of needs based on highly functioning people. By analogy, the different parties in a highly functioning supply chain also have a hierarchy of needs which must be satisfied in a particular order: control + flexibility + added value.

The first need is for control. Everyone playing a part in your supply chain has to be sure about what is happening. Correct information about the flow and status of goods and services must be accessible, constantly updated, and presented in such a way that it is immediately useful as the basis for rapid decisions. The Control Tower concept includes an information hub which gives precisely this level of service.

Sitting in a centralized position, you need to have fresh information on what your sub-contractors can do, as well as what your end customers are doing. It is vital that this information is credible and reliable, since everything changes so rapidly and incorrect information can do more harm than no information at all.

The second need is for flexibility based upon the superior knowledge that you build on good control at the first level. You and your collaborators need to constantly change and improve the operations of a superior supply chain, in order to respond to new business demands, meet cost and price pressures, and improve performance along the entire supply chain. This may involve gradual or sudden changes in network functionality; warehouses, hubs and routes; or even replacing, insourcing or outsourcing your logistics service suppliers. In our Control Tower concept, all of these elements are available for monitoring, analysis, simulation and controlled operational change.

The third and highest level of needs is to provide added value. If you are already using your information hub and continually are improving performance, that may be enough. But in highly competitive markets, you have to do more. With a Control Tower implemented, you are able to use your superior control of your supply chain to generate added value for your customers.

This may involve giving your customers better control by using advanced order tracking, or sharing delivery time estimate updates – based on information from wide-ranging areas of your supply chain. Another example is to send customers e-mails to inform them when delivery times change. Your competitors will find it hard to copy your added value features, partly because it takes time to get to the point where you are in such control that you can share your information with your customers, and partly because you can build these features with the control and development functions inherent in the Control Tower.

To sum up; you can use your supply chain information to gain and maintain competitive advantages, if you work with the control + flexibility + added value model within a Control Tower concept. Ultimately, we could say that a complete Control Tower implementation becomes a tool for forecasting customer demand for logistics and transportation, and gives you the means to plan for fulfilling it – with extremely high customer satisfaction.

And it is never too late to start.