The recession and credit crisis have thrust supply chain visibility -- and the need to gain greater visibility and control over inventory and landed costs within the global supply chain -- to the top of the corporate agenda. This is according to Supply Chain Visibility Excellence: Reduce Pipeline Inventory and Landed Cost, the latest research study by Aberdeen Group.

"The economy, global competition, ongoing business transformation, and the increased lead-times/complexity of global supply chains are creating a situation where pipeline inventory and landed costs per unit handled have increased dramatically," says Bob Heaney, senior research analyst, Aberdeen Group. "But before you can reduce pipeline inventory or landed cost you need visibility to them."

Analysis of survey responses from 209 companies shows clear differences between leading and laggard companies. Leaders have decreased total landed costs per unity by 5.5 percent in the last year, compared with a 7.3 percent increase over the same period for laggard companies. Leading companies decreased the frequency of out-of-stock situations by 7.3 percent, compared with a 3.5-percent increase for laggards.

As the degree of global collaboration grows and global supply chains become even more complex, it is likely that visibility systems will continue to be a collection of discrete systems, with leading companies being most successful in integrating them and gaining a more end-to-end and close-to-real-time visibility of their supply chain operations. The report examines the capabilities that top performing companies are deploying and strategic alliances they are using to capture, integrate and optimize the myriad of supply chain events of their overall global enterprise.

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