To achieve operational excellence in their global supply chain management, one of the important steps companies need to take is gaining more granular visibility into supply chain processes and beginning to use supply chain visibility data and supply chain intelligence to drive increased responsiveness in their global supply chains.

To improve supply chain resiliency, companies need to include risk considerations in their supply chain network design efforts, sales and operations planning, and inventory planning; on the execution side, they need to improve logistics and transportation management, secure alternative supply chain partners, and ensure proactive alerting process and response management for disruptions.

When the competition is no longer among individual companies but among entire supply chains, every area of end-to-end cost reduction needs to be explored. Financial supply chain optimization has helped leading companies make their whole supply chain more competitive with the introduction of more advanced supply chain finance practices and automated transaction processing. Finance, supply chain, and procurement groups need to collaboratively explore how to use supply chain finance to reduce supply chain costs.

The way companies manage global trade and supply chain networks is changing. Aberdeen's research shows that leading performers are moving towards an integrated view of global trade management, focusing on simultaneously optimizing physical, financial and information flows and networks in order to achieve competitive advantage.

"Proactive" visibility is what matters most in effectively managing supply chain disruptions, i.e., when companies get the right information when it matters, from all critical internal stakeholders, as well as external supply chain partners. Companies need to have event management capabilities to aid in this process.