How Cloud ERP Can Help Build Resilient Supply Chains

Discover how modern Cloud ERP can strengthen your supply chain resilience to help you navigate disruptions and empower your business.

Creating thriving distribution or manufacturing business relies heavily on a resilient supply chain. It's the lifeline that ensures you have access to the raw materials and products essential to your operations. The unprecedented number of supply chain disruptions since 2019 vividly demonstrates the vulnerability of nearly every product supply chain. With these disruptions resulting in missed customer order deadlines, diminished trust, and dwindling profits for manufacturers and distributors, it is clear that modern businesses need solutions that provide comprehensive visibility, enhance efficiency, and tackle supply chain challenges head-on. This is where modern cloud ERP solutions step in to empower your business.

What Is a Resilient Supply Chain, and Why Is It Important?

Ensuring your supply chain's resilience means it can weather short-term and long-term disruptions, swiftly recover, and fulfill business obligations without compromising service levels. By adapting your processes and operations to evolving business conditions, your organization can respond more efficiently and effectively to potential disruptions across logistics, facilities, manufacturing, development, and beyond. This resilience is paramount for your business to not only survive but thrive in a competitive landscape.

According to the BCI’s 2023 Supply Chain Resilience Report, 45.7% of all participating respondents reported supply chain issues in 2023. Even with the majority of respondents reporting having mitigated disruptions to their supply chains due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 44.1% still cited limiting effects on their supply chains as a result of the disruptions caused by the global pandemic with 33.8% reporting major knock-on effects and 10.3% stating that those effects were serious in nature.

In addition to global supply chain disruptions, participants in the BCI study also cited data breaches from cyberattacks, staff shortages, energy shortages, natural disasters, and adverse weather events as major factors impacting their supply chain reliability in 2023. With so many threats to the supply chain, it’s easy to see why more organizations are now taking a serious look at the resiliency of their supply chains with 73.4% of surveyed organizations stating that their supply chain disruptions are being tracked and reported on.

Six Ways Cloud ERP Can Help You Build a Resilient Supply Chain

✅ Data Consolidation and Integration

In many cases, traditional or legacy supply chains weren't designed to handle diverse data sources. Instead, they typically followed a linear model focused on tracking materials, products, and personnel, often leading to surplus inventory, extended lead times, and decreased productivity.

By adopting a cloud ERP solution, you can craft a circular supply chain that seamlessly integrates and orchestrates actions across various departments, spanning logistics, engineering, assembly, and packaging.

In essence, cloud ERP empowers your business to bridge gaps across disparate systems, break down data silos, and expedite the introduction of new services – capabilities that are critical in today’s unpredictable global landscape.

✅ Enhances Visibility into Operations and Logistics

According to a whitepaper by IDC, "resiliency equals visibility plus agility." With this definition in mind, ask yourself, how well do you know what's happening in your factory right now? How much visibility do you have into your current operations, logistics, and inventory across distribution sites?

By consolidating data from every corner of your supply chain into a unified dashboard, you can establish a singular reference point. With a modern cloud ERP solution, you gain immediate, comprehensive visibility across your logistics and inventory channels in real-time. This heightened visibility empowers you to make more informed, data-driven decisions, enabling you to address demand and supply imbalances promptly and effectively.

✅ AI and Machine Learning Capabilities

You'll find that most modern cloud ERP solutions now feature some form of AI assistance and machine learning capabilities to streamline data analysis, expedite decision-making processes, and mitigate risks while enhancing forecast accuracy.

For example, Dynamics 365 Business Central is a cloud-based platform that leverages AI to optimize inventory management. By analyzing actual usage, demand patterns, and inventory availability, as well as sales forecasts and anticipated stock-outs, it can automatically generate purchase orders.

With the recent integration of even more advanced AI assistants, like Microsoft Copilot, navigating through diverse datasets across your business becomes more manageable. A modern cloud-based ERP with AI functionality not only helps analyze internal data but also incorporates external factors such as market trends, competitor activities, and sales reports, enabling you to make more informed decisions and stay ahead of the curve.

For more on how AI can help your business thrive, check out:

🟡Microsoft Copilot AI for Microsoft 365 Explained

🟡Using AI in Dynamics 365 Business Central

🟡Top AI Tools For SMBs

✅ Optimizes Production and Distribution Planning

Embrace the power of cloud ERP to fine-tune your production and distribution strategies in real-time, ensuring optimal inventory management across all your operations. With the capabilities of a modern cloud-based ERP solution, you can accurately predict demand, streamline material requirement planning, and guarantee resource availability to optimize your overall operations and cut down costs.

For instance, consider  Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, a cloud-based solution equipped with in-memory microservices. With this technology, your business can swiftly adapt to rapidly evolving customer demands by executing production and distribution planning tasks within minutes.

✅ Simplifies Warehouse Management

Unlock the potential of cloud ERP to streamline and enhance your warehouse management processes, enabling your business to fulfill orders with greater efficiency, leading to improved delivery times and increased customer satisfaction.

With a cloud solution like Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, you gain the benefits of an integrated warehouse management system that equips your company with the tools you need to consistently meet delivery deadlines.

You can also leverage this solution to create customized heatmaps using low-code techniques and automate workflows. This empowers you to optimize warehouse capacity, layout, material consumption, and the flow of both raw materials and finished goods in real-time, ensuring maximum efficiency and productivity.

✅ Ensures Business Continuity

With built-in remote access capabilities, cloud ERP solutions allow you to safeguard your organization's operations and maintain seamless continuity for critical manufacturing and warehouse processes to ensure uninterrupted business operations across various locations.

These solutions also offer robust backup and recovery plans, minimizing the risk of data loss. Unlike traditional systems, cloud ERP solutions are less susceptible to disruptions caused by power outages, hardware failures, or network issues. For example, Microsoft's Dynamics 365 provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee, ensuring that your operations remain consistently accessible and functional, even during unforeseen circumstances.

Ensure Your Supply Chain is Ready for the Future

Investing in a modern cloud ERP solution, like Dynamics 365 Business Central, is key to fortifying your supply chain's resilience in today's fast-paced environment. With its intelligent features, a cloud ERP can empower you to navigate disruptions effectively and revamp your operations in times of change.

At Kwixand Solutions, we're committed to acting as your partner as you embark on this journey by providing you with comprehensive solutions and strategies as well as support and training through our Customer Care Program. Contact us for a free consultation with a Kwixand ERP implementation expert or sign up for a free 1-day ERP assessment and kickstart your digital transformation journey today.