Role of Business Intelligence in Supply Chain Management

Introduction

Supply chain management is essential for efficient flow of goods, services and information from production to consumption resulting to benefits such as cost reduction and enhanced responsiveness to market demands. One the other hand, it faces challenges like supplier disruptions and lack of visibility across the chain resulting to delays and increased costs. That is why Business Intelligence plays an important role by helping businesses make smarter decisions, reduce risks and improve efficiency. In this blog, we will explore why supply chain management needs Business Intelligence and how it helps businesses to grow. Let’s dive in.

Understanding business intelligence in supply chain

Business Intelligence (BI) in supply chain refers to the use of data analysis tools and technologies to collect, process, and interpret supply chain information. It empowers supply chain industries to make informed choices by transforming raw data into actionable insights.

Why supply chain management needs business intelligence

Today, supply chains deal with a huge amount of data. Using guesswork or old tools just doesn’t work anymore. Therefore, business intelligence is needed in supply chain industry to:

• Improve agility: Supply chain departments often struggle to respond quickly to changes in demand or supply. Therefore, business intelligence is needed to provide team with real-time insights that support faster and more flexible responses.
• Stay ahead of competitors: Slow decisions and lack of visibility can make companies fall behind. The supply chain team needs BI to make quicker, smarter choices that boost performance and market position.
• Fix supply chain management issue: The supply chain often faces delays, running out of stock, and inefficiencies that make it less effective. BI tools can help turn these problems into chances for improvement and growth.
• Improve cost management: Not having a clear view of spending causes waste and increased costs. The supply management team needs BI to monitor expenses and find ways to save money.

The role of business intelligence in supply chain management

The role of Business Intelligence (BI) in supply chain management is to help businesses make well, faster, and more informed decision by:

1. Understanding demand & managing stock: BI helps businesses know what customers will want by looking at past buying habits. It predicts seasonal demand so production matches what people are likely to buy.
2. Checking how suppliers are doing: It helps track if suppliers deliver on time and at fair prices. For instance, businesses can spot slow or unreliable suppliers early and switch to better ones.
3. Seeing what’s happening right now: Teams can see updates about orders, deliveries, and storage as they happen. For example, using live BI dashboards help you see where shipments are, so delivery routes can be changed quickly.
4. Improving customer service: BI helps track delivery times and order accuracy to keep customers happy. For example, it can show which areas have frequent delays so service can be improved.
5. Making decisions based on data: It gives clear insights from data to support everyday choices. It helps managers to compare different shipping options and pick the fastest or cheapest one.
6. Tracking product quality: It helps monitor product returns and complaints to find quality issues. For example, if one batch has more returns, it can be flagged for review.

Now, let’s explore top best practices to help you use Business Intelligence (BI) effectively in your supply chain:

6 best practices for implementing BI in supply chain management

• Define clear supply chain objectives: Align BI initiatives with measurable supply chain goals like cost savings, faster deliveries, and inventory accuracy.
• Integrate data across the supply chain: Connect systems like ERP, WMS, and TMS to create a seamless flow of operational data.
• Ensure data quality and consistency: Standardize and regularly validate supply chain data to ensure dashboards and decisions are reliable.
• Use predictive analytics to anticipate challenges: Apply forecasting and machine learning tools to foresee supply chain disruptions or inefficiencies.
• Enable real-time decision-making: Set up live dashboards to help stakeholders respond instantly to supply chain events and performance changes.
• Foster a data-driven culture: Train teams to use BI tools effectively and collaborate around shared insights.

Business intelligence dashboard examples for supply chain industry

Real-time visibility is a major challenge in the supply chain industry, often causing delays, excess inventory, and inaccurate forecasts. This empowers professionals to track key metrics in real time and make faster, data-driven insights to boost efficiency and reduce waste. In this subheading, we will explore Bold BI^® supply chain dashboard and how they address these challenges with practical solutions:

Supply chain performance dashboard

The supply chain performance dashboard helps you track customer details, such as the customers’ city, product name, and delivery status. You can monitor the KPIs, like cash to cycle time, which shows the time it takes to convert inventory into sales. The days receivable outstanding, days payable outstanding, and days inventory outstanding cards help you dive into the financial and sales operation details.

Supply chain inventory management dashboard

The supply chain inventory management dashboards gives details about inventory: the product availability, inventory days of supply, backorder rate, return rate card, and inventory carrying cost. With these metrics, you’ll know about the company’s performance, customer needs, operating costs, and ability to continue selling the products. By studying these visuals, decision-makers can devise strategies to function more efficiently.

Supply chain distributor delivery performance dashboard

The distributor delivery performance dashboard racks critical metrics like accurate delivery contributions, customer satisfaction, average delivery time, delivery accuracy rate, and distributor delivery details. These insights help assess distributor, identify delays, control delivery costs, and improve fulfilment accuracy. By analyzing this data, businesses can optimize distribution strategies, strengthen distributor relationships, and enhance customer satisfaction through timely and accurate order deliveries.

The Bold BI dashboards discussed here make it easier for stakeholders to view all their essential data in one consolidated place—leading to faster insights, better planning, and more effective operations. You can embed them into your supply chain app to give teams instant access to real-time metrics, streamline workflows, and improve overall visibility across the entire process. Request a free demo with our expert and explore the whole embedding process today.

Conclusion

By using business intelligence in supply chain management, businesses can reduce risks, speed up decisions, and uncover new opportunities for growth. BI tools like Bold BI® offers real-time dashboards to help teams stay agile in a fast-moving market. Want to make the most of your supply chain? Start your free trial with Bold BI, and explore powerful features designed to boost supply chain performance through table-based dashboards. Or request a free demo with our experts to ask specific questions for your situation.