Viewpoint: Visibility the backbone of supply chain platforms

The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FreightWaves or its affiliates.

On Monday, Tive, project44 and KODIS announced the formation of the Open Visibility Network, a collaborative supply chain visibility program. Both Tive and project44 have recently announced funding rounds. It is not surprising that they are putting newly available capital to work.

One of the themes we have explored in this column in the past is the idea that we are entering an age of supply chain platforms. For example, FreightWaves ran Commentary: FedEx/Microsoft partnership points to era of supply chain platforms on June 10, 2020.

Over the course of 2020, as the world has wrestled with COVID-19 and supply chain professionals have risen to the challenge of solving one problem after another, I have been privy to conversations with senior supply chain executives at multinational companies, businesspeople managing small and midsize businesses who are suddenly facing supply chain problems they have never had to deal with in the past, as well founders of early stage supply chain technology startups building software innovations to solve problems in supply chain and operations.

Consistently the issue of supply chain visibility rears its head as the most pressing need. The sentiment expressed by executives and business owners may be paraphrased in these words: I need to know where my goods are before I can make other decisions about my supply chain and operations. This is then usually followed by complaints about the lack of a reliable end-to-end supply chain visibility product that “just works.”