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Use Social Media to Enhance Supply Chain Transparency

Use Social Media to Enhance Supply Chain Transparency

by | Feb 12, 2019 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain

Transparency in your supply chain through social media outlets can give a look inside your company in a way that your customers are craving.

Highlights:

  • Customers have been demanding more visibility into supply chains of the products they purchase.
  • Through social channels like  Twitter , LinkedIn , and Facebook, companies are greatly enhancing  their two-way communication with customers and sharing information with their stakeholders.
  • The top reason that supply chain companies are choosing to participate in social media is to increase the visibility of their company.

Supply chain management is such a complicated web of factors that most companies choose to keep operations behind the scenes and unveil a finished product with an intense marketing roll-out.

But what if that’s backwards and an outdated approach to marketing? (Hint: It is.)

The complexity of supply chain management

There is no question that SCM can be deeply and frustratingly complex. Consider TechTarget’s definition of SCM:  “the broad range of activities required to plan, control and execute a product’s flow, from acquiring raw materials and production through distribution to the final customer, in the most streamlined and cost-effective way.”

With so much intense analysis at every step, the details your  supply chain management (SCM) team considers can seem endless, and the impressive knowledge they hold is certainly not something most people can understand.

Or can they? What if that mindset – the one that thinks that your SCM is so complex that it wouldn’t interest or be able to be grasped by your customers – is wrong?

In fact, what if it’s so wrong that you are missing something important? Customers today want to understand your supply chain.

Transparency in your supply chain

A common misconception is that most customers are interested in a final product. Of course, your final product better be outstanding, but there are other factors fueling today’s buyers, business-to-business (B2B) customers included.

For a few years now, customers have been demanding more visibility into supply chains of the products they purchase.  For example, they want to ensure sustainable practices around the earth’s scarce resources, to know where their food is sourced, and to confirm ethical pay and conditions for any laborers involved. B2B buyers are no exception. They want their vendors to be more than just a final product too, and are constantly searching for value outside the sales funnel.

Transparency with social media

What if you shared what fueled your daily SCM decisions with your customers, stakeholders, and suppliers? Not every last complex detail…but some of them, and the intangibles too:

  •  What drives SCM decisions besides cost?
  • Who is your SC team?
  • Where are you sourcing?
  • Why do you do things as you do during production?

Transparency of SCM through social media outlets can give a look inside your company in a way that your customers are craving.  Through social channels like  Twitter , LinkedIn , and Facebook, companies are greatly enhancing  their two-way communication with customers and sharing information with their stakeholders.

Of course, the benefits of social media to SCM don’t stop there.The supply chain needs social media for enhanced customer communication, increased industry education, and an ability to socially monitor the market. Social media has the capability to empower your supply chain in multiple ways.

According to a survey we conducted, the top reason that supply chain companies are choosing to participate in social media is to increasing the visibility of their company (95%). Don’t simply focus on your final product(s) and leave out your supply chain! When you make your supply chain transparent to your customers and stakeholders, everyone wins.

This post originally appeared on EBN Online.

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Sourcemap: End-to-end supply chain visibility

by | Jun 17, 2014 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain

Many companies within the logistics and supply chain industries are stuck on the social media starting line.  The reason – “they can’t get past the word ‘social’ and the perception it creates.”  The reality is that social media is a tool that can be utilized to create value and grow your business. 

This is the third in a series of articles that provides examples of companies within the logistics and supply chain industries who have moved beyond the social media starting line and have realized the business value of participating in social media.

Sourcemap: End-to-end supply chain visibility

In the wake of events such as hurricane Sandy, the Fukushima nuclear distaster, the Bangladesh factory collapse, and the horse meat scandal, businesses and consumers are increasingly demanding supply chain transparency.

Sourcemap is a social network which provides end-to-end visibility within a supply chain.  Sourcemap offers supply chain mapping, crowdsourced RFIs, risks and alerts, and KPI dashboards.  Launched by researchers at MITs Media Lab, Sourcemap was recently named one of Spend Matters Top 50 companies to watch.

Figure 1: What Sourcemap Offers

  Sourcemap

Sourcemap connects producers, manufacturers, and consumers for end-to-end visibility. Manufacturers can use Sourcemap to trace products down to raw materials, to manage risk, to and plan more resilient, efficient supply chains.

Consumers can use Sourcemap to learn where things come from and what they’re made of, including their social and environmental impact.

Stonyfield used Sourcemap to create an interactive sourcing map for its yogurt – to show consumers where the ingredients that go into their yogurt comes from.

Consumers simply click on an ingredient shown on the map (Figure 2) and then are shown information about the specific ingredient (Figure 3).

 Figure 2

Stoneyfield sourcemap

 Figure 3

Blueberries

In the process of creating the map, Stonyfield engaged suppliers and fostered increased communication and stronger relationships.  These relationships, this communication, and the ability for companies (and consumers) to know their supply chain from end-to-end is what Sourcemap wants to provide.

Sourcemap takes social media and makes it a vital supply chain tool.