“Information about the package is as important as the package itself” said Fred Smith, founder and chairman of FedEx. And it’s easy to see why. Data is generated at every stage of the logistics process. When integrated, organised and managed properly data tells you how your business is performing. More importantly, data can be used to predict future outcomes. And ultimately what you need to do to get to where you need to be.

We call this being data driven.

The great thing about your data is that you don’t need to invest huge amounts of time and money in order to start out on your data driven journey. Cost effective business intelligence tools will quickly show how you’re doing against your company and department KPIs.

Predictive analytics and data science systems offer more advanced functionality such as demand forecasting, dynamic pricing and route planning. And, for those with more complex requirements, data can be used to power decision support systems that support strategic and operational work at all levels of the organisation.

The imperative faced by companies operating in today’s supply chains is to use their data to integrate with other players upstream and downstream. If they can’t they are increasingly redundant. And likely to be less efficient and more costly than those that can.

At The Information Factory we’ve developed a simple framework to help companies harness the power of their data; Strategy, Delivery, People & Culture and Technology. The recommendations in the framework have all been road tested in live situations and come from our clients who've already embarked on their data driven journey.

If you’d like to discuss your own data driven journey – we’d love to hear from you. Please call +44 (0) 20 3858 9655 or email info@theifactory.com

Photo by Guillaume Bolduc on Unsplash