Despite heavy investments in logistics tech, supply chains remain fragmented, risking resilience. Industry experts highlight unified data platforms and emerging technologies like blockchain as crucial to overcoming siloed systems and achieving real-time visibility.
Supply chains today have become sprawling, technologically advanced ecosystems, yet a critical obstacle remains deeply embedded within their operations: fragmentation. Despite record investments in logistics ...
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technology and analytics, the industry continues to grapple with disconnected systems, poor data visibility, and siloed decision-making, hindering agility and resilience across global networks.
A recent feature highlighted by nVision Global draws attention to this pressing issue, emphasizing that fragmentation is not merely an operational inconvenience, but a significant source of risk. Deepak Singh, Chief Innovation Officer at Adeptia, remarks that up to 60% of business data arrives in incompatible formats such as PDFs and scanned documents, which creates barriers to seamless integration. This fragmented data flow results in errors that ripple through finance, logistics, and compliance teams, causing missed credits, costly re-billing, and penalties. Industry analyses from Gartner further reinforce this vulnerability, reporting that 63% of supply chains remain fragile, struggling to adapt effectively during disruptions.
This fragility is compounded by the limited visibility companies have into their supply chain tiers. A 2021 McKinsey study referenced by NetSuite reveals that less than half of companies possess visibility into their immediate tier-one suppliers, with even less insight into second and third tiers. This opacity exacerbates risk by hindering proactive management and response.
Importantly, visibility must extend beyond mere freight tracking. Andre Luecht from Zebra Technologies stresses that today’s elevated expectations require companies to monitor and respond to changes in real time. Achieving this demands interconnected systems, reliable data, and intelligent analytics that provide a comprehensive, unified picture across all supply chain layers. Without such integration, real-time responsiveness remains elusive.
One of the foundational challenges is data quality and interoperability. According to logistics leaders surveyed in a JBF/Pando study, 83% identify poor data quality as the principal barrier to adopting AI solutions, underscoring that analytics, forecasting, and automation are only as good as the data they consume. Data validation issues, highlighted by experts in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) integration, frequently cause delays and errors. Best practices now advocate for rigorous data cleansing at the point of entry and leveraging machine learning to flag and correct recurring data inconsistencies.
The digital landscape of supply chains further reveals a fragmentation of platforms. Many businesses still rely on separate systems for inventory management, logistics, and supplier communications, creating persistent data silos. This compartmentalisation undermines operational efficiency and stifles supplier collaboration. Industry guidance suggests investing in cloud-based, integrative technologies that can connect these ecosystems to internal ERP and MRP systems, facilitating smoother data flow and reducing manual reconciliation.
Moreover, as e-commerce platforms increasingly interface with supply chains, new integration complexities arise. Delays in data transmission and inconsistent data formats cause stockouts and inaccurate order confirmations, which negatively impact customer satisfaction. Fragmented communication channels remain a significant hurdle to synchronising online sales with physical logistics operations.
In response, some solutions involve exploring emerging technologies that enhance data integrity and interoperability. For instance, blockchain offers a secure, transparent mechanism for tracking and verifying transactions across the supply chain, potentially mitigating fragmentation-driven risks by ensuring real-time visibility and trust among stakeholders.
nVision Global’s approach to addressing these challenges exemplifies practical progress in overcoming fragmentation. Their Freight Audit & Payment, Transportation Management, and Claims Management solutions unify financial, operational, and service data streams, normalising global freight data into a single analytics platform. This integrated view enables users to model risk scenarios, identify inefficiencies proactively, and transition from reactive responses to informed, strategic decision-making.
Ultimately, the consensus within the industry is unmistakable: supply chain weakness stems not from a lack of technological innovation but from the failure to connect these innovations effectively. Integration is the keystone to resilience. Until the sector achieves a common data language—where every shipment, invoice, and performance metric converge within a unified system—the challenges of fragmentation will persist, adding cost, delay, and complexity.
In today’s volatile, interconnected global market, visibility is no longer a competitive advantage but a critical necessity. The future of supply chain resilience depends on smart unification rather than the proliferation of disconnected tools, marking a fundamental shift towards more transparent, responsive, and collaborative logistics networks.
Source: Noah Wire Services
