Supply chain visibility is a requirement for any organization competing in today's global marketplace. The top strategy for organizations looking to improve visibility into their supply chains is to implement technologies that enable effective monitoring of not just tier one suppliers but tier two and tier three suppliers. New technologies enable real-time collaboration between an organization and its suppliers by providing a mechanism for sharing information about inventory and processes throughout the supply chain. – Andrea Stroud, Research Program Manager, APQC
In "truly collaborative" trading relationships, targeted operational metrics, such as inventory days, total landed cost, and cash-to-cash cycles, can be expected to improve by 50 percent over those without collaborative execution capabilities, according to a joint research project of E2open and SCM World.