The Ledger
Curated content foranalytical business leaders
Train Your Supply Chain to be Dynamic
December 18, 2018
The very nature of the supply chain is that it’s constantly subject to change, whether that change comes internally (new products, new technology, new management) or externally (regulations, disruptions, competition). There’s also now compelling evidence that the workforce itself is being changed by this continuous influx of new-ness. Due to the shift in consumer buying habits to an omni-channel/”always-on” model focused on immediate gratification, shippers find themselves stretched in every direction. They recognize the need for greater agility, but many haven’t made the required changes to improve their agility over the past five years.
Leave Excel Limitations in 2018
December 17, 2018
Despite the limitations and lack of flexibility of Excel, it is still the main tool used by FP&A departments for analyzing and reporting data. Excel is a familiar platform that is easy to use, cost friendly, and comes with many formatting and graphing capabilities. However, the negatives far outweigh the positives when using Excel for data analytics. With Excel, calculations are made in reference to their position on a grid. In a modern solution, calculations are named and thus are always applied to the right data. This makes the calculations easy to set up and manage, while with Excel you can only hope the right data is being accessed. In addition, Excel has limitations when being used for data modeling, reporting and data analytics, and combining data from disparate systems. To get users to give up their spreadsheets requires showing them that there is a far better, faster alternative that is secure and doesn’t have the inherent integrity issues.
Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >
Empower your Business-Enabled Data Analytics With PAML Technologies
December 13, 2018
An intelligent enterprise is a company that understands their customers and delivers customer-specific outcomes using data and technology, like predictive analytics and machine learning (PAML). These technologies are advanced enough for standardization. We can now model common business problems at high enough levels of abstraction that they can be used as starting points for a wide variety of common challenges. With intuitive tools and the right data, business analysts can use these models to start realizing value quickly and empowers the business to achieve results.
Read More at The Digitalist by SAP >
Reshaping the Last Mile with Agility
December 12, 2018
The “last-mile” is increasingly becoming a key issue in the e-commerce supply chain. Many companies that struggle are focused on transportation alone, instead of managing inventory and getting the right items to the right place at the right time. The F.A.D. (Flexible transport networks, Automation and Data) model is a framework that will help retailers and logistics operators ensure their competitiveness over the last mile. By improving their performance in increasing automation, managing data and building flexibility into their networks, e-commerce companies in all markets will be able to better manage inventory and increase the efficiency of their last-mile delivery networks.
