With supply chains stretching around the world, all participants need up-to-date information to make their business work efficiently. Technology can help but good planning is essential.

Commenting in The Times on the 10th June 2010, Jon Nicholas, Senior Consultant at Crimson & Co observes 'there are no easy answers to the challenge, companies are advised to get closely involved in the process rather than trying to outsource it too early to a third-party supplier. Using a 3PL, you don't necessarily get an accurate picture of what's going on and you also lose flexibility. Provided you can get accurate feeds from the disparate sources in the supply chain, you can learn how to manage the information. As long as they can provide the information you need, all you need is a consolidation tool, and that's not expensive. Doing it piecemeal yourself may seem hard, but it is a good way to learn. As long as information is available from suppliers, then the team can start collating it. Some good companies have gone through doing it in a slightly ad-hoc, labour-intensive way, getting a real feel for what's going on, and then stepping back and looking at how they can do it better. This means they are now looking at it from a position of knowledge. They are prototyping on the way.'

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