The pandemic and war in Ukraine have caused serious disruption to supply chains. Analysis by Interos shows that more than 2,100 U.S.-based firms, and at least 1,200 in Europe, have Tier 1 suppliers in Russia. In addition, more than 190,000 firms in the U.S. and at least 109,000 in Europe have Tier 2 and 3 suppliers located there.

As companies navigate through the continued pandemic response and uncertainty caused by the war, they’re facing challenges around instability of supply, price inflation, logistics disruption and labor impacts. As a result, the traditional notion of building resiliency in supply chains is evolving — and it should. No longer can companies focus only on flexible manufacturing, increasing inventory or varying supply sources. Instead, the key to building resilience is visibility.

Research from Accenture found that companies with greater visibility are better positioned to handle all kinds of disruptions, creating a more resilient supply chain. What may come as a surprise is that companies don’t need full visibility into everything: An intelligent view into certain product lines, customers or suppliers is often enough.

But what is visibility — and, more specifically, “intelligent visibility” that can be achieved with the use of new technologies and analytics? Most supply chain professionals have a general ideal of what the word means, but there actually are two types of visibility that create resilience in supply chains: structural and dynamic.

Structural Visibility

Structural visibility tells companies where their suppliers and points of manufacturing are, and which logistics routes they use (including those of their partners), and shows interrelationships across the broader supply chain network. It includes traditional activities such as network mapping, classic risk management, network assessments and modeling. Structural visibility is like an X-ray that gives a company a snapshot of its operations at a point in time or over a certain period, and helps uncover vulnerabilities.

Leading companies are generating greater structural visibility using new technologies like the digital twin, a virtual replica of the company’s supply chain. It allows a company to use advanced analytics to simulate and model its supply chain’s performance, and stress-test for risks and vulnerabilities, both critical best practices in preparing for disruptions.

Most companies employ regular network mapping, classic risk management and network simulation, optimization and modeling, a best practice that’s typically done more frequently in times of disruption. While structural visibility isn’t necessarily available for the entire supply base, it can be limited to certain suppliers.

Dynamic Visibility

Dynamic visibility helps companies see where products are across the supply chain, how plants and warehouses are running, when and where disruptions are occurring, what disruptions are affecting, and how. Think of it like a video that enables a company to monitor and respond to events in real time. It’s a progression of increasingly mature capabilities, typically generated with the help of a supply chain control tower.

The four main types of dynamic visibility are monitoring, predicting, prescribing and autonomous execution. With greater dynamic visibility maturity, a control tower emphasizes execution, enabling companies to take action on issues as they see them, or allowing the control tower to do so autonomously through artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotic process automation. In doing so, the system can independently act on real-time supply chain signals to capitalize on opportunities and minimize the impact of disruptions.

Structural visibility is a requirement for successful supply chain resilience. Every company should, with the help of a digital twin, have the basics such as network mapping, risk management, network assessments and modeling in place. Ultimately, though, dynamic visibility must be the goal. Most companies monitor demand and supply and use data predictively, while prescriptive use is somewhat uncommon. Additionally, autonomous execution is the least used form of dynamic visibility; companies report using it primarily for internal operations and suppliers and customers rather than external events. The predictive visibility and autonomous execution that can be achieved with a sophisticated control tower are the keys to maximizing resiliency.

As companies move from centralized, linear models of supply to decentralized supply networks that are flexible and efficient, they also need to build in new capabilities to help assess where they’re most vulnerable, and see what’s occurring across the extended supply chain. With this visibility, leaders can make quick fact-based decisions to rebound more quickly from disruptions, or even avoid them altogether.

Kris Timmermans is global supply chain and operations lead at Accenture.