BPM Strategies - March 2008 - (Page 6) Using BPM, BDM and SOA To Create a More Agile Supply Chain By Tom Dwyer E very enterprise understands the importance of retaining its customers. With continually increasing options, customers are more demanding than ever. A supply chain - the means of providing customers what they want, when they want it - must become more agile, and able to respond to customer needs. In addition, an enterprise’s supply chain represents a significant investment in technology, assets, and people. Enterprises can gain significant operational efficiency and increased profitability through optimization. Although investments in enterprise applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM) have enhanced efficiency, they have also reduced long-term effectiveness because of the creation of many data silos and inflexible architectures. However, a supply chain management technology investment should not replace an existing inflexible IT architecture with another one. Instead, any supply chain initiative must not only extend and leverage investments, but also provide flexibility for future projects and enable adoption of newer technologies such as VoIP and analytics. That is the promise of business process management (BPM), service-oriented architectures (SOA), and business decision management (BDM). Attaining superior efficiency and customer satisfaction across the entire supply/demand chain is essential for all organizations. An enterprise’s supply chain presents the single biggest opportunity for operational ineff iciencies in any enterprise. This potentially affects an enterprise through: Dissatisfied customers, who are looking for the right product, in the right place, at the right time. Disappointed suppliers, who are making their best efforts to satisfy their enterprise customers, but are unable to attain visibility into demand. Attaining superior efficiency and customer satisfaction across the entire supply/demand chain is essential for all enterprises. Increased cost by potentially forcing multiple interactions with different touch-points throughout the enterprise. Without supply chain visibility, too many employees both at an enterprise and its suppliers - must get involved to fulfill an order. BPMSTRATEGIES 6
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