limbiq Use Case: Internal Supply Chain Collaboration
In Part 3 of our series on SCM use cases with limbiq, we will examine the importance of collaboration in supply chain management and how limbiq users can achieve it. Collaboration and communication are crucial tasks for anyone working in supply chain management. Without coordination between the various partners along the supply chain, goods would not flow smoothly. In order to achieve this, multiple parties must work together by collaborating and communicating effectively. The more efficiently these parties work together, the more efficient the supply chain becomes, making it easier to cope with volatilities and disruptions.
limbiq supports several use cases, including supporting internal and external collaboration. For this blog post, we will focus on internal collaboration, which is often overlooked but offers a huge potential in efficiency gains for organizations. Many publications discuss the need for supply chain management to overcome silos, which refers to the external supply chain where consignees, forwarders, suppliers, and other partners need to work together.
However, when we look within a company, we see similar structures. Departments such as warehouse management, sales, dispatchers, retail, manufacturing, and finance work in their own silos. All of these departments require input or data related to the supply chain in order to carry out their work.
Internal supply chain communication is often inefficient
Have you heard of WISMO? It stands for "Where Is My Order?" and is a typical example of an event that triggers a waterfall of internal communication by email, spreadsheets, or consultation of various websites. This happens when, for example, a customer calls to ask where their goods are, or when manufacturing needs to know. The ERP only shows the status "ordered," but the warehouse has not received anything. The supplier states that the goods have been shipped. These are already three steps that need to be taken before logging onto various websites of forwarders and carriers to find out where the goods in transit are. Then, the internal spreadsheets are updated, and the next email is sent. Does that sound familiar?
In times of crises supply chains become inefficient
This process becomes inefficient and costly when requests pile up and multiple departments are waiting for updates.
How limbiq supports internal collaboration
When designing limbiq, collaboration and communication were top of mind for us. Therefore, we focused not only on optimizing external collaboration but also on internal collaboration.
Unlimited Users
limbiq offers unlimited users. This means that you can invite all teams to the platform and provide the information as a self-service portal. Rather than calling or emailing the track-and-trace expert or supply chain manager, colleagues can simply log in and retrieve the necessary information.
Self-Service Portal
You can grant access for all users of your organization and granularly define what they can see. So you can offer a self-service with the following features:
Automated Status Update
limbiq offers automatic status updates. Therefore, if any user is looking for an update, the latest status is always visible.
Automated Alerts
limbiq offers automated alerts that can be individually configured, allowing you to only react to the necessary ones.
Extended Search Functionalities
Whether you're searching for the status of an individual SKU, shipment, or order, simply type in your request and you'll have all the information you need at your fingertips.
Real-Time Messenger
limbiq offers a real-time messenger that enables you to exchange messages with partners. All entries will be logged in case you need to check them later.
Integrating the entire team and adjoining departments into one central platform will help supply chain managers distribute information to other teams more efficiently and will help everyone to be on the same page on where the goods in transit are.
If you want to learn more about the internal collaboration use case and how Limbiq can support your needs, you can find more details here.
About limbiq:
We make SCM intuitive, affordable & fun to use! We are a young FreightTech start-up with the ambition to create the most efficient supply chain workflow solution and thus revolutionize communication in international logistics. Our mission is to make supply chain management across company borders intuitive, affordable and fun to use.
