B2B supply chain (Overview)

Creating an B2B supply chain approach is critical today, when companies are competing in a volatile economic environment and are finding it increasingly difficult to forecast the future performance of their business or marketplace. An B2B supply chain operation dynamically integrates demand and supply management, targets customers to boost revenue, and helps to maximize profit and shareholder value.

The key enablers of an B2B supply chain are lean and flexible operations, end-to-end visibility of supply and demand, collaboration, event-based management and integrated technology. B2B supply chains also enable a company to link order management with planning and forecasting and develop separate operations for customer segmentation.

By creating supply chain operations, companies are better positioned to tackle changes in the supply chain environment. Beyond that, an supply chain enables a company to become an enterprise, in which their key processes--and technology--can gauge and respond quickly to changes in the market, consider the best options to use capital, and grow ahead of its competitors.