The Past and the Future of the Supply Market Intelligence for Business

Posted by Ankit Kohli on August 3rd, 2016

Professionals who manage supply chains should consider supply market intelligence as an important part of the sourcing process. With supply market intelligence, a business can create and sustain its competitive advantage while minimising supply risks.

Critical suppliers are not the only sources of risk in a supply chain. Often times, risks come from tier two, three, and four suppliers. Hence, it is crucial for a business to maintain the visibility of its extended supply chain and determine the key risk and performance indicators that must be monitored to avoid sudden issues.

Supply market intelligence is crucial to supply chain professionals because it provides insightful data to help them analyze the supply market and the supply chain. But in reality, not all companies have the manpower or the expertise to conduct market intelligence research. It takes time to gather data, go through them, and identify which ones are most relevant. Many different indicators must be identified and monitored through a supply chain risk management framework—including market-related, sustainability, macroeconomic, geopolitical, and operational risks. Hence, it makes sense to hire an experienced and reliable specialist firm that can take care of all your supply market intelligence needs.

Supply market intelligence providers use a systematic approach to identify risks in the supply chain. The most seasoned specialist firms are able to map and identify interdependencies in the extended supply chain by collecting data from the extended supply chains of critical suppliers and analysing the information. Potential risk areas are mapped by conducting research on countries and markets that could greatly affect the extended supply chain of every procurement category. This way, a supply market intelligence firm can identify the risk indicators that must be monitored for every category.

Hiring a firm that specialises in supply market intelligence eliminates the need for you and your stakeholders to constantly keep tabs on risk indicators to find risk signals. You can leave that to the specialist firm, which uses a proven category intelligence framework to observe key risk indicators linked with every procurement category while keeping you updated through news alerts, periodic newsletters, and reports. The firm is connected with industry experts, whom they consult to obtain reliable insights and grounded intelligence. By hiring a specialist firm, you can stay informed and be aware of any potential risk that could come from your n-tier supply chain.

About the Author:

Pure Research Private Limited (Pure Research) provides customised research and business intelligence to leading corporates, public sector organisations, financial services firms, and professional services firms. The company specialises in providing high quality procurement and supply chain intelligence to CPOs and procurement professionals worldwide. Analysts from Pure Research work as an extension of its client’s procurement teams to deliver high quality insights on suppliers and supply markets. The company has offices in London, U.K. and New Delhi, India.