After decades of running their supply chains with internal enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, enterprises have seen the shift to a global economy and supply chain — requiring a myriad of external business processes that their internal systems were never designed to handle.
Historically, ERP systems served as internal “drive chains,” linking together diverse enterprise functions such as finance, manufacturing, purchasing, customer service, marketing/sales, and engineering. These systems established their value because they could be closely tailored to the internal workflows of companies. Unfortunately, ERP systems were never intended for handling business processes that occurred outside of company walls.
This poses a dilemma for companies with global supply chains, since most employ suppliers and contractors around the world — and sell their goods in many countries. The need to track the sourcing of components, the builds of products, and the delivery of finished goods remains unchanged — only now these processes must occur outside of the company and in a global supply chain that ERP can’t address.
Unsurprisingly, solving the need for these new supply chains that reach into every corner of the world has become a fertile area for SaaS solutions.
