What is Supply Chain Analytics?

Supply Chain Analytics software is the application of different analytics tools to improvise the supply chain operational efficiency and effectiveness with data-driven intelligence.

Top Supply Chain Analytics Vendors in 2020:

• Oracle Corporation
• SAP SE
• IBM Corporation
• SAS Institute Inc.
• Microstrategy Inc.
• Tableau Software Inc.
• Software AG
• Infor Inc.
• Logility Inc.
• Savi Technology

The Supply Chain Management area has emerged as one of the prominent tools for implementing analytics tools, as the organizations are striving to leverage analytics to gain a competitive edge over others. Top supply chain analytics solutions offered by the industry players include supplier performance analytics, spend and procurement analytics, inventory analytics, demand analysis, and forecasting, and transportation and logistics analytics.

The Supply Chain Analytics market is expected to grow from USD 3,606.8 million in 2018 to USD 9,875.2 million by 2025, at a CAGR of 14.6% during the forecast period.

Top 25 companies offering Supply Chain Analytics software features were analyzed, shortlisted and categorized on a quadrant under Visionary Leaders, Innovators, Dynamic Differentiators, and Emerging Companies to identified best Supply Chain Analytics software providers.

Vendors who fall into this category generally receive high scores for most of the evaluation criteria. They have a robust and established product portfolio and a very strong market presence. Moreover, these vendors also have strong business strategies. This category includes top Supply Chain Analytics software vendors Oracle Corporation, SAP SE, IBM Corporation, SAS Institute Inc., Microstrategy Inc., and Software AG.

The dynamic differentiator's category includes established vendors with very strong business strategies. However, they are low in the product portfolio. This category includes vendors such as Rosslyn Analytics, Savi Technology, Domo Inc., and Cloudera Inc.

Innovators are vendors who have demonstrated substantial product innovations as compared to their competitors. They have a focused product portfolio. However, they do not have very strong growth strategies for their overall business. This category includes best Supply Chain Analytics software vendors such as Infor Inc., Tableau Software Inc., Qlik Technologies Inc., Tibco Software Inc., Logility Inc., Voxware Inc., BridgeI2I Analytics Solutions, Axway Inc., and 1010Data Inc.

Emerging companies’ category comprises vendors with niche product offerings, who are starting to gain their position in the market. They do not have very strong business strategies as compared to other established vendors. They might be new entrants in the market and require some more time before getting significant traction. This category includes vendors such as The Anylogic Company, Relex Solutions, Datameer, Targit, AIMMS, and Antuit.

Importance of Supply Chain Analytics Software:

• Accelerate sales
• Speed-up material movement
• Improve standards
• Efficient utilization of data 
• Gain a significant return on investment
• Better understand risks
• Increase accuracy in planning
• Achieve the lean supply chain
• Prepare for the future
• Improving product tracking & traceability
• Optimizing transportation performance

Types of Supply Chain Analytics:

• Descriptive analytics: It offers visibility and a single source of truth across the supply chain, for both internal and external systems and data.
• Predictive analytics: It helps an organization understand the most likely outcome or future scenario and its business implications.
• Prescriptive analytics: It helps organizations solve problems and collaborate for maximum business value. This helps businesses collaborate with logistic partners to reduce time and effort in mitigating disruptions.
• Cognitive analytics: It helps an organization answer complex questions in natural language. It also assists companies to think through a complex problem or issue.

Important features to be considered while choosing Supply Chain Optimization:

• Data Visualization:  Data Visualization can turn complex data into supply chain insights and transform your decision-making cycle into a process of discovery.
• In-memory Analytics: In-memory Analytics is a business intelligence (BI) methodology used to solve complex and time-sensitive business scenarios. With in-memory analytics, the queries and data reside in the server's random access memory(RAM).
• Omnichannel Analytics: Omnichannel Analytics Solutions delivers analytic and measurement environment solutions to measure results of their marketing campaign spend across digital and offline channels and derive actionable insights from their data.
• Real-time Analytics: The real-time supply chain provides a constant stream of real-time data. This enables greater visibility, agility, and in-the-moment decision-making via artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning applications and data analysis.
• Risk Assessment: The main factor for supply-chain risk management is a predictive model that uses enhanced analytics to identify potential risks.
• Supply Chain Network Optimization: SCM Network Optimization provides the ability to determine the costs and benefits of adopting a company’s overall network in response to changes.

What are the types of Supply Chain Management Software?

• Supply Chain Planning: This manages planning processes related to product demand, materials supply across the company’s supply chain and product distribution.
• Supply Chain Execution and Fulfilling Orders: This deals with management, monitoring, and allocation of resources with supply chain events.
• Supply Chain Collaboration: These are web-based software applications that distribute & manage the planning and administration information across a global supply chain network.

How to choose the right Supply Chain Management software?

• There are some key factors that need to be considered while choosing supply chain optimization software for your business.
• Identify what features are needed in the software and based on that select the software type for your business.
• Examine the integration of new supply chain management software with an organization’s existing software and business.
• Find service-oriented and reliable vendors and also check if they offer support services needed for the implementation and maintenance of software.
• Check if the software is customized as per your industry.
• Check if chosen Supply chain management software is flexible in its operating system and database.

What’s trending?

• Analytics and Analysis
• Supply Chain Optimization Apps
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Supply Chain Optimization
• Blockchain Roles in Supply Chain Optimization
• Business events and systems events are gaining traction in the supply chain world
• Content and SEO For Supply Chain Companies
• Conversational Commerce
• End Users Are Top Priority
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Information That Informs Logistic Decisions
• Robotic Processes Automation (RPA)
• Supply Chain Security
• Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)