By Vinit Verma
In the first blog of this three-part series, we discussed supply chains from a 50,000 ft. view — what they’re supposed to do, why they fail, and how supply chain analytics can help remediate a “distressed” supply chain. In this blog, we’ll dig deeper into how organizations can build an integrated supply chain with the Boomi AtomSphere Platform and the Snowflake cloud data platform. And we’ll do that in five steps.
Step 1: Break the Data Barrier Through Application and Data Integration
If digital transformation efforts — failed and successful — have taught us anything, it’s that getting a handle on where all your data resides is no simple matter. And when you’re dealing with supply chain data, produced by hundreds or even thousands of partners, the challenge is immense. It creates a data barrier to an integrated supply chain.
That’s where the Boomi platform’s ability to connect anything to anywhere through application and data integration plays an important role. Application and data integration make trusted data readily available and structured for analysis, which is one of the keys to a healthier, high performing supply chain.
Step 2: Collect and Transform Supply Chain Data
The Boomi platform can collect supply chain data from wherever it lives, in applications like CRM or ERP or generated from B2B integrations via EDI, transform it, and push it to the Snowflake cloud data platform.
Because the Boomi platform is data format agnostic, it can understand the many formats found across a global supply chain: Unstructured data, semi-structured data like JSON or XML, and structured data, as well as the EDI X12 format and the NCSA Common log format for web logs. It can also handle the major data formats generated by IoT sensors and applications, which include text, binary, XML, CSV, JSON, and RFID. Further, Boomi can keep track of the individual data format needs of individual supply chain partners.
Without a way to connect systems, gather their data automatically, and transform it when necessary, you’ll be faced with extracting data manually and the fundamental problems of systems that are not integrated and the data silos they create will remain.
Step 3: Focus on B2B Integration via EDI
There will come a time — and it’s not too far away — when if your business is not EDI enabled, your opportunities to function as a supply chain partner will drastically shrink. EDI integration helps organizations connect their supply chain partners and automate transactions. EDI provides visibility across a global supply chain, so partners understand in real-time customer demand, raw material availability, finished goods inventory levels, delivery schedules, etc. as well as invoicing and payment status.
No amount of manual effort can duplicate this visibility. In addition, EDI can help businesses onboard new supply chain partners much more quickly and efficiently. The more complex and multi-tiered your supply chain, the more essential it is that partners are EDI enabled. Can you imagine a company like Walmart sending faxes and emails back and forth to manage its supply chain?
The Boomi platform is fully EDI capable. Boomi’s low-code development allows companies to easily set up and manage B2B integrations, onboard partners, and integrate EDI with their existing processes and legacy applications. The platform’s EDI dashboard provides human readable access to all the relevant underlying data inside correlated EDI documents in processes such as Order to Cash. The only path to a truly integrated supply chain is via EDI. It’s a competitive advantage and eventually it will become a requirement for marketplace survival.
Step 4: Ensure Data Quality To Support Analytics
Any endeavor that produces a lot of data usually produces data that needs curation: cleansing, transforming, and deduplication. An active supply chain certainly does. Data that has not been curated is not suitable for analytics because it may contain errors and inaccuracies.
Take for example customer details, which will exist in multiple systems across a supply chain. Organizations need to understand which version of the information is correct. Are Suzanne L. Morgan; Morgan, Suzanne; and Morgan, Sue L the same person? A validated record with name, address, and contact details should exist for every customer and it should be synchronized across all systems in the supply chain.
The agile, cloud-native capabilities of Boomi Master Data Hub, part of the Boomi AtomSphere Platform, makes it possible for data stewards to model, match, synchronize, cleanse, and enrich data across the supply chain, regardless of data volumes. With Master Data Hub, organizations can ensure their data is accurate, complete, and up to date. Master Data Hub employs a centralized hub architecture that all contributing systems can use. It provides real-time validation, enrichment, and data matching across all connected systems.
The benefits here are two-fold. First, suppliers can trust the data they’re sending and receiving is timely and accurate. Second, with Master Data Hub, data pushed to Snowflake is immediately available for descriptive and predictive analytics.
Step 5: Automate Supply Chain Workflows With Boomi Flow
In a supply chain, every transaction has a workflow, and every workflow presents an opportunity for automation and its attendant benefits. Whether it’s onboarding a new partner, approving a payment, verifying inventory levels, generating a purchase order and dozens of other tasks, workflow automation saves time, money, and headaches.
Flow, Boomi’s low-code workflow automation service, empowers partner organizations to digitize and automate manual processes, removing needless time and complexity from common interactions. With Flow, partners can:
- Visually build workflows that include tasks, data access, and automated actions
- Create simple approval processes or complex cross-organizational work streams, such as transactions involving multiple tiers of suppliers
- Simplify management by tracking activities, events, and errors during the execution of workflows
- Easily integrate workflows with popular cloud applications or use the Boomi connector for advanced integrations
The Supply Chain of the Future Is Totally Integrated
In fact, in many industries that future is now. To integrate their supply chains, organizations need to:
- Identify, collect, cleanse, and transform their data
- Get on board the EDI bandwagon, fast
- Automate, automate, automate
Without an integrated supply chain, businesses cannot create a great customer experience — one that is engaging and reliable across all channels. The Boomi AtomSphere Platform, trusted by thousands of customers globally for its speed, ease-of-use, and lower total cost of ownership, can simplify and streamline the journey to an integrated supply chain. And with accurate, up-to-date supply chain data in Snowflake, the power to manage your supply integrated chain via analytics is in your hands.
For more information on Jade’s Boomi-based solution for supply chain analytics, visit the Snowflake website.