Enterprises lose control over the inbound supply network becauseof the lack of visibility to disruptions in the supply chain. Oncea PO has been sent to the supplier companies often have no meansof figuring out its status until the shipment is received at the warehouse.This results in enterprises stocking up their warehouses with bufferinventory and contracting premium service levels with carriers. Thelack of business process coordination with suppliers results in manuallyintensive and inefficient supply and demand management and reducedorder fill rates.

Additionally from a strategic perspective the lack of forward-lookingdemand visibility causes increased inventory levels at different pointsin the supply chain. After all this confusion there is no centralrepository of data available to enable an analysis of what went wrongand how suppliers carriers and other third-party participants performed.This is primarily because the data required is distributed acrossvarious systems in warehousing purchasing transportation managementsupplier systems and carrier systems. Sometimes the data does noteven exist.