What is Supply Chain Commerce?

Everything you need to know about the supply chain technology, industries, and networks that make up supply chain commerce.

Supply Chain Commerce Defined

Supply chain commerce is the process of transacting and orchestrating the flow of goods and services to and from businesses to the end consumer. It includes every step involved in manufacturing final products, distributing them to retail markets, and delivering them to the ultimate customer through direct shipment or a retail store network.

In the modern world, supply chain commerce is achieved through technology unification, focusing on solving the underlying challenges that come with supply chain processes by unifying the ecosystem of manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and businesses powered by supply chain orchestration to provide a product or service. It connects everything in the digital and physical supply chain world—including technology, people, and products—and is done so by utilizing supply chain management and omnichannel software to achieve this unification, especially at the enterprise business level.

Supply chain management and omnichannel software combine to provide the engine that makes supply chain commerce go, optimizing supply chain execution, planning, and omnichannel commerce operations to ensure product reaches the end customer in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible. The best supply chain software solutions streamline this process profitably by unifying supply chain commerce through cloud-native solutions, turning software capabilities into differentiating business outcomes enterprise wide.

Supply chain management software separately focuses on unifying the journey from raw materials to manufacturing to distribution to retailer. Omnichannel commerce software focuses on providing a consistent customer-facing retail experience in every sales channel, either digitally or in-store. This is made possible by connecting the back-end retail operations to the front-end via unified platform technology, with the ability to interact with the retail customer whenever needed. The end goal of supply chain commerce is to have all solutions interact and co-exist together to execute on mastering the art of supplying customers with the goods they desire.

Supply chain planning software provides valuable insights and historical data that enable users to predict and react to future supply chain demands with demand forecasting, allocation, and inventory optimization solutions.

Gartner states, “Supply chain planning (SCP) is the forward-looking process of coordinating assets to optimize the delivery of goods, services and information from supplier to customer, balancing supply and demand.”

The best supply chain planning software precisely predicts the future demand for products and strategically aligns global inventory distribution and positioning to autonomously optimize fulfillment. Supply and demand challenges become an advantage by placing inventory in the most optimal location to succeed, reducing overstock and costs of maintaining unused inventory, and increasing fill rate, buyer productivity, and overall profitability.

Omnichannel commerce software enables retailers to provide customers and associates with seamless, consistent shopping experiences across all physical and digital channels, regardless of the buyer’s journey taken. It unifies the back end and front-end of retail operations and allows flexibility for customers who want to shop online, in-store, or via a mobile device with fulfillment options that span all channels. Examples of omnichannel commerce fulfillment made possible by the right technology include a customer placing an online order to be picked up in-store or returning an online order in-store for a full refund or exchange.

Gartner defines omnichannel as, “the seamless integration of digital and physical assets, typically in retail.”

The best omnichannel commerce software unifies the digital and physical retail experience with order management, store inventory and fulfillment, point of sale, and customer service and engagement solutions all connected. This convergence empowers retail associates with the technology needed to provide the modern shopping experience today’s customers require through a single, unified platform with enterprise-wide views of inventory, customer data, and sales data to assist anywhere along the buyer’s journey. Plus, with digital self-service technology and returns management, customers can control their experience with return and exchange capabilities at their fingertips even after the transaction is complete.

Manhattan’s science of supply chain commerce revolves around providing our customers with the technology needed to recognize and respond to challenges with adaptive solutions that evaluate, optimize, understand, and act. This is accomplished through an extensive cloud-native technology platform with guided and predictive solution intelligence that analyzes, models, simulates, and learns from your supply chain operational experiences. Its flexibility and performance are made possible by evergreen, extensible, and scalable SaaS technology. It is equipped with open access to reporting, data extract, and API development tools, giving our customers the insights needed to utilize our technology to address their specific supply chain needs.

We understand our customers desire ways to increase revenue, reduce waste sustainably, and lower costs wherever possible. It is why we have developed solutions to grow cart conversions with better fulfillment promising, optimized fulfillment execution to maximize utilization, package products more densely to ship less air and limit returns, and enable drivers to travel fewer miles, use fewer trucks, and consolidate whenever feasible. In the all-important customer-facing retail interactions between associate and customer, we are providing memorable, modern experiences that build trust, loyalty, excitement, and a consumer desire for more.

And we are always improving our solutions with innovative data sciences like machine learning to create more precise operational outcomes and a technology foundation that is continuously updated to provide the latest and greatest capabilities.

Hit the Contact Us button below to start your transformation toward profitably mastering supply chain commerce.