Supply Chain Analytics Trends in 2022

Collaboration across multiple suppliers, software, and processes has long led to excessive data created off the back of even small-scale supply chains. By highlighting weaknesses, strengths, and operational patterns, this data can transform supply chain management. 

Unfortunately, data in its raw form is next to useless when it comes to creating the insights necessary to drive positive change. Informed data handling and improved supply chain management requires supply chain analytics. 

As globalisation continues, analytics that provide clear, comprehensive visualisations, and decision-driving insights are essential in order to ensure reliable, lucrative supply partnerships that operate seamlessly. Even companies who were putting analytics to effective use prior to the disruption caused by COVID-19 will need to adjust with speed, efficiency, and technology in mind. 

This article will look at emerging supply chain analytics trends and how businesses can make sure they remain at the forefront of analytics processes. Let’s get started.

Trend 1: EDI-as-a-Service

By enabling the digital transfer of supply documents, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has been key to smooth supply chain operations and visibility since the 1960s. Unfortunately, complex onboarding processes, a lack of technical expertise, and incompatible standards have meant that EDI’s effectiveness has been hindered, despite being used by as many as 85% of companies.1 

Given these challenges, and a landscape that increasingly requires their elimination, the future of EDI will need to focus on modern, hybrid solutions. At Data Interchange, we’ve termed this new approach EDI-as-a-Service

By combing managed EDI benefits with web EDI implementations, this cloud-based alternative to legacy solutions is transforming how global trading partners communicate and share information, providing operational benefits that include:

  • Visibility
  • Simplicity
  • Flexibility
  • Efficiency

In terms of analytics, these simplifications and enhanced implementations make it easier to not only access the data necessary to derive insights, but also help improve supply chain planning and control, ensuring the utilisation of this information through:

  • Improved supplier relationships: DiNet, our cloud-based Value Added Network at Data Interchange, makes it easier to store documents from large supply chains in one place using one connection. This drastically simplifies real-time supplier communications, ensuring that all parties can specify their needs and ensure efficiency. This increased understanding contributes towards improving the relationships that have always been a touchstone to supply success.
  • On-the-ground improvements: Organisations distracted by often ineffective EDI supply chain applications have typically been slow or altogether unable to implement the improvements necessary to work through long-standing supply issues. By overcoming these challenges, including long-winded implementations and convoluted data exchanges, EDI-as-a-Service increases the capabilities to spot and address issues, and frees the time and budgets necessary to do so.

As global supply chain complexities continue to emerge, 100% EDI adoption looks set to be the most effective way to optimise supply chain operations, and EDI-as-a-Service can help make this a reality.

Suggested reading: To learn how you can benefit from a competitive advantage using EDI, check out our eBook — The Supply Chain Centred Business

Trend 2: Agile supply chains

As 2020 taught us the hard way, agility is essential in order to avoid significant supply chain disruption during unprecedented times. 

Competitive advantage within supply chains over the last eighteen months has relied on the ability of all organisations to adapt quickly, embrace new technologies, and find new solutions. 

Analytics that highlight concerns as they arise can help provide this much-needed agility. However, time should still be spent considering how analytics are collected in the first place, with the immediate transfer of files also essential for effective analytics in the moment and across long-term relationships. 

Almost immediate implementations across even unversed supply chain partners means that EDI-as-a-Service easily offers these benefits, making it possible to quickly onboard new suppliers wherever necessary (e.g. moving off-shore manufacture to near-shore supply in the face of travel restrictions). The ability to rapidly communicate updates and concerns with existing supply partners also ensures the speed of change necessary to avoid supply delays, regardless of the setbacks that will inevitably arise.

Trend 3: Digitisation

As global supply chains create more data, the long-winded manual handling of supply chain management and oversight becomes not only ineffective but increasingly difficult to maintain. 

Moving forward, analytics are therefore dependent on the digitisation of global supply chain management, through processes including paperless systems and the movement of supply processes into the Internet of Things (IoT). The ability to digitise previously human-led tasks at scale is helping to:

  • Demolish silos
  • Enhance transparency
  • Improve responsiveness
  • Ensure efficient supply chain ecosystems

These benefits are made possible with EDI-as-a-Service, which makes it easier to ensure the efficient analysis of relevant information, and the easy sharing of those insights. This is especially the case where digitisation is accomplished alongside cloud integrations.

Trend 4: The cloud

Cloud-specific spending is projected to grow six times faster than other IT expenditure over the next few years.2 In fact, as many as 57% of supply chain professionals were operating across fully implemented cloud solutions even pre-2020.3 

Recent challenges, and the visibility issues they’ve created, have highlighted the need for cloud usage that enables the immediate collection and sharing of analytics across a platform that’s translatable across even diverse partnerships, with the backing of notable operational benefits like flexibility, scalability, and importantly, accessibility.

EDI-as-a-Service can offer all of these benefits and more across easy to access, customisable cloud-based dashboards that enable full message visibility, alerts, audits, and reports. This is perhaps the easiest way for modern, global supply chain partners to access, implement, and communicate the lessons inherent in analytics overall.

Trend 5: Big data

As digitisation becomes a supply chain norm, even standard processes are producing data increases. Everything from inventory management to stock traceability now leaves notable data trails, bringing analysis within easier reach. With this comes an increasing need for tools that simplify data handling and facilitate analytics.

That’s where EDI-as-a-Service comes in. This modern approach to EDI can help feed this new information into an organisation’s storage repositories. Whilst not actually undertaking any analysis, by ensuring the storage of, and access to, big data sets, EDI-as-a-Service can fuel usable analytics that can significantly impact supply chain management.  

This simplified access to predictive analytics makes it easier for businesses to foresee stock shortages and travel restrictions, subsequently making the agile supply chains discussed above more obtainable. 

Trend 6: Artificial intelligence

As big data grows, the ability to narrow down on applicable analytics is becoming increasingly dependent on artificial intelligence (AI) implementation. 

As well as automating things like warehouse and inventory management, AI systems that incorporate predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms are quickly becoming essential for seamless improvements across planning and decision support systems. Furthermore, AI is even beginning to play a role in the identification of all-important supplier patterns.

As with the other trends discussed here, the implementation of EDI-as-a-Service compliments the capabilities of AI. According to Gartner, poor data quality contributes to increasingly complex data ecosystems and poor decision making that ultimately costs organisations an average of $12.9 million every year.4

EDI-as-a-Service increases the quality of data processed by making it easier to store information from large supply chains. It also gives businesses the ability to feed that data from customers and suppliers into their AI implementation from a single-source-of-truth. The result is better-informed decision-making processes based on reliable data that can be translated into a competitive advantage for businesses.

EDI adoption is key

Each of these trends highlights the fact that the efficient collection and implementation of analytics in 2022 relies on simplified systems that are easy to implement. EDI adoption across supply chains brings this goal within reach, but, until now, that has seemed unattainable.

By updating legacy EDI solutions to ensure simplified integrations for every single supply chain partner, EDI-as-a-Service from Data Interchange stands out as the most effective way to begin the process of optimising supply chain analytics.

As diverse and long-distance partnerships threaten to convolute data handling further, EDI-as-a-Service has arrived at just the right time to help simplify analysis and produce actionable outcomes. Contact us today to get started with analytics fit for 2022.


1EDI Trends: The Future of EDI for 2021
2Cloud adoption to accelerate IT modernization
3Adoption of cutting-edge technologies by supply chain companies in 2020
4How to Improve Your Data Quality

Transform your approach to supply chain management

Talk to an Expert








    Epicor values your privacy. Website terms and conditions.

    RELATED ARTICLES

    The EDIFACT DELJIT T-Set: Structure, Benefits & Use Cases

    The EDIFACT DELFOR T-Set: Structure, Benefits & Use Cases

    The VDA 4915 Message Explained

    The VDA 4905 Message Explained

    T-Sets | ANSI X12 810

    How to optimise your EDI and ERP system integration

    T-Sets | ANSI X12 997

    T-Set | EDIFACT INVOIC

    T-Set | EDIFACT DESADV

    Exploring Cloud EDI Services in ERP: Architecture, Security, and Scalability

    VDA Explained: Message Standards and Transaction Sets

    ANSI X12 Explained: Message Standards and Transaction Sets

    EDIFACT Explained: Message Standards and Transaction Sets

    The Power of Web EDI for Global Supply Chains

    How to Get the Most Out of AS2

    How EDI Simplifies Transactions in the Manufacturing Sector

    Why Your Automotive Supply Chain Needs an OFTP2 Connection

    Digital Supply Chain Trends Impacting 2023 and Beyond

    How to Manage Global Supply Chain Complexities

    How to Overcome Supply Chain Risk

    What is the Future of Supply Chain Management in 2023?

    How to Improve your Supply Chain Strategy

    Why Scalable EDI is Integral to Rapid Business Growth

    How to Pick the Right EDI File Transfer Protocol

    An Introduction to OFTP2 (Odette File Transfer Protocol)

    What are the Costs of EDI Implementation?

    What is PEPPOL?

    A Guide to EDI Protocols

    EDI VAN Costs: Get the Right Solution for your Business

    How Much Does EDI Cost?

    How Do On-Premise EDI Solutions Work?

    Our Plan at Data Interchange to Change EDI and Supply Chain Management

    Integrating EDI with your ERP

    In-house vs Managed Service EDI

    What is an API Integration? And how does it affect EDI?

    Epicor Acquires EDI Provider Data Interchange

    6 Benefits of EDI in the Logistics Industry

    4 Challenges Facing the Logistics Industry and How to Overcome Them

    Top EDI Solution Providers in 2023

    Solving Supply Chain Problems in the Logistics Industry

    B2B EDI Integration Best Practices in 2023

    How to Choose The Right EDI Provider in 2022

    Future-proof your business: Take Advantage of Market Growth

    Announcement: Andrew Filby becomes CEO of Data Interchange

    7 Advantages of EDI in The Automotive Industry

    Consumer Expectations cause Demand for Integrated Data

    How to Optimise Your Automotive Supply Chain Processes

    Post-Pandemic Supply Chain Challenges Increase the Pressure

    EDI Made Simple for the Automotive Industry

    Overcoming Supply Chain Visibility Issues in the Automotive Industry

    Complex Supply Chain Problems and Simple Solutions

    Supply Chain Flexibility: Why your customers need it

    5 Automotive Supply Chain Challenges Facing the Industry

    Supplier Performance Management Reimagined in 2023

    How to Unite Emerging Supply Chain Management Technology Trends

    Meet the Team: Marketing

    Supplier Management Best Practices after COVID-19

    The Future of EDI: Looking Beyond 2025

    The top three supply chain data exchange requirements

    The Advantages of EDI in E-Commerce: How to Gain a Competitive Advantage Online in 2021

    A Crash Course on EDI Industry Standards: ANSI x12 vs EDIFACT vs OFTP and more

    What is EDI Mapping?

    What is EDI: The History and Future of Electronic Data Interchange

    The Future of the Automotive Supply Chain

    Supplier Relationship Management: How to reduce risk and improve performance

    How EDI-as-a-Service Changes Supply Chain Best Practices in 2021

    Agile Supplier Onboarding: Supply Chain Security in Uncertain Times

    The impact of failed EDI on Supply Chain

    Cloud-Based EDI Solutions vs On-Premise

    Different Types of EDI Compared

    5 Most Common EDI Implementation Issues and How to Solve Them

    Are your EDI documents ready for the new EU/UK customs border?

    B2B Integration Challenges

    EDI vs API: Bridge the B2B connectivity gap

    Ten things to look for in an EDI Managed Service Provider

    World Mental Health Day 2020

    Logicalis & Data Interchange – partnering for success

    EDI – A data integration service critical to business success

    Joining forces with SnapLogic: bringing together market leading iPaaS and EDI solutions

    Joining Data Interchange: My lockdown experience

    Data Interchange announces strategic partnership with SmarterPay

    Access new trading partners quickly for COVID-19 support

    Keeping supply chains moving

    Our Web EDI solution gets a makeover

    Coronavirus: Our Business Continuity Plan

    With love from Data Interchange ♥

    A new decade, renewed ambition and the next generation

    Brexit and EDI

    Data Interchange transform their Support service for an improved customer experience

    Interview: An update on Data Interchange’s new CEO, Robert Steiner

    Data Interchange appoints Robert Steiner as new CEO

    MQ messages over ENX – Renault

    Five key questions for your EDI provider

    Data Interchange at the Odette Conference 2018

    How to select the right EDI provider

    Future proof your EDI and unleash growth

    EDI: the Supply chain performance enhancer

    Taking cost out of the chain

    Non-EDI users held up in the mail

    Over 41% of companies at risk without EDI

    ​Consolidating VAN providers

    Increase visibility and productivity of supply chain logistics with Data Interchange’s B2B integration solutions

    Data Interchange wins large business of the year award

    Data Interchange launch new Support Portal

    Data Interchange will be showcasing our EDI solution offerings and promoting the benefits of MMOG/LE

    Metaldyne receive special recognition from Ford for 11th consecutive year

    Making the move to cloud based EDI Solutions

    Top 5 reasons to switch to EDI Managed Services

    Data Interchange to power QAD Managed EDI On Demand