Mitigating Supply Chain Delays — Top Stresses and Solutions

By Ryan Tierney 

Supply chain disruptions have become commonplace, making supply chain efficiency and resilience business-critical for manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, and other businesses that cannot afford delays with customer orders.

What are leading organizations doing to reduce the risk of supply chain delays and sustain a competitive customer experience?

This article shares results from a recent study of supply chain companies by TrueCommerce—revealing their top worries, goals, and technology investments.

What is a supply chain delay?

A supply chain delay is any issue that keeps goods from flowing as intended. These delays can impact all supply chain participants, including manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers, retailers, distributors, shippers/logistics companies, carriers, and customers.

For manufacturers and retailers/e-tailers, supply chain delays can slow shipping, extend delivery times, impact inventory availability, and/or lead to customers placing orders that cannot be fulfilled. Some delays, such as longer shipping times around major gift-giving holidays, are predictable or expected. Others, like a cybersecurity incident or closure of a key trade route, can and do occur at any time.

What are the two categories of supply chain delays?

The goal of every supply chain is to get the right product to the right place in the right timeframe and at optimal cost. Supply chain delays can be internal or external in origin:

• Internal delays often result from inefficient supply chain processes, such as rekeying data between systems, human error, or ineffective technology. Another internal delay threat is cyberattacks. The good news is that organizations can potentially control many of these issues. Eliminating internal sources of delay through automation, better visibility on supply chain processes and data, better decision-making, and improved cybersecurity can proactively address a host of delay factors to help ensure a competitive customer experience.

• External delays are more often beyond a company’s direct control. But they can be anticipated and planned for to reduce their impact. Such risks include unfavorable weather, natural disasters, labor strikes, geopolitical upheaval, and legal/contractual conflicts. Planning for external delays often means aiming for stability rather than efficiency. For example, diversifying suppliers can help mitigate many external risks but could also mean price or quality variations as well as increased process complexity. Minimizing costs while improving resiliency planning is a balancing act where the right technology can help enormously.

Supply Chain Delays Rank Among the Top Business Challenges

The TrueCommerce study illustrates in multiple ways the central importance of mitigating supply chain delays.

For example, supply chain delays factored into the top business challenges for 2023 and 2024. Cyberthreats were of primary concern to 29% of businesses for 2024, followed by the need for real-time information exchange, visibility into business processes, and eliminating manual processes:

Business Challenge	2023	2024
Cyberthreats	23%	29%
Real-time information exchange between partners	19%	19%
Visibility into business processes	8%	9%
Overcoming manual/paper-heavy processes	4%	3%

Not only is supply chain management becoming harder, but also its importance has never been greater. Among manufacturers, 65% see supply chain delays and related problems as their top business challenge, according to the National Association of Manufacturers’ 2023 outlook survey. More efficient supply chain processes are thus at the top of their business priorities.

Delays Top the List of Supply Chain Difficulties and Goals

The TrueCommerce survey also asked respondents about anticipated supply chain difficulties. Supply chain delays figured heavily in these concerns as well.

Labor shortages were the biggest supply chain delay concern, worrying 34% of respondents. Cyberthreats were next at 31%. Shipping problems, freight bottlenecks, materials scarcity, and natural disasters weren’t far behind.

Supply chain delay	% concerned
Labor shortages	34%
Cyberthreats	31%
Shipping challenges due to geopolitical issues	25%
Freight bottlenecks	23%
Material scarcity	19%
Natural disasters	19%

With supply chain delays of such great concern, it’s not surprising that steps to reduce these risks are also prominent among respondents. Improving supply chain resilience is a top goal for 25% of surveyed businesses for 2024. Reducing delays is also a top goal for 21%, followed by process automation at 13% and time to market reductions at 12%.

Supply chain goal	2023	2024
Supply chain resiliency improvement	28%	25%
Reducing delays	15%	21%
Process automation	15%	13%
Time-to-market reductions	8%	12%
Visibility into business processes and workflows	6%	9%

Supply Chain Delays Are Driving Technology Investments

Technology investments are necessary for businesses to remain competitive and operate effectively. Mitigating supply chain delays is paramount in this regard.

71% of surveyed leaders plan to spend more on supply chain software in 2024 than they have in past years.

What capabilities are businesses leveraging to address supply chain delays? Almost 60% of respondents plan to implement both supply chain management (SCM) and electronic data interchange (EDI) tools.

Solution or tool	% planning to implement
SCM	60%
EDI	59%
Order Management System (OMS)	48%
Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)	48%
Warehouse Management System (WMS)	42%
Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI)	39%

EDI is the secure, automated exchange of electronic documents between trading partners, such as purchase orders, invoices and shipping data, using a standardized format that allows different computer systems to communicate seamlessly. Implementing EDI helps eliminate manual data entry, reducing errors and freeing staff to focus on value-added work.
 
SCM software can have a wide range of capabilities, mostly designed to improve visibility of supply chain data end-to-end, from sourcing or manufacturing all the way to the customer. An SCM solution can help you monitor inventory, track shipment status, adroitly address delays, and forecast market demand trends. SCM can also automate recurring tasks like order processing and inventory management, or automatically share inventory data or order information with marketplaces.

Why are SCM and EDI solutions the most popular? Because they provide visibility on key supply chain data. To mitigate supply chain delays you need to be aware that there is a delay in the first place. You also need to know where goods are currently, and whether or not you can fulfill orders.

EDI integrated with SCM not only streamlines communications and transactions with retailers and other trading partners, but also extends that supply chain visibility and efficiency benefits of the individual solutions. A robust, integrated, cloud-based supply chain platform can also improve your ability to protect sensitive data and reduce cyber risks.

The Importance of ERP Integration

Alongside EDI and SCM investments, a critical technology capability is enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration. Connecting your ERP or accounting system with EDI, SCM, inventory management, sales systems, etc. boosts supply chain visibility for better decision-making.

ERP integration also improves productivity and lowers operating costs by automating mundane tasks like rekeying data. ERP integration with EDI is a major driver for supply chain efficiency. Many organizations are moving to cloud-based EDI integrated with cloud-based ERP to rapidly improve supply chain visibility with seamless, out-of-the-box integrations.

Automation and visibility both help mitigate supply chain delays. For example, without EDI/ERP integration many companies rely on their 3PLs for inventory and order management data. This makes it harder to track inventory or know whether an order has been fulfilled or not. But when EDI and ERP are integrated, real-time data and reliable analytics are available on demand.

EDI/ERP integration can also simplify automating speed and accuracy for order fulfillment and invoicing, eliminating the time and cost associated with manual processing while improving cash flow management.

Choosing the Right Technology Partner

Businesses of all sizes are working hard to evolve by accelerating processes, improving accuracy, and becoming more efficient. Making the right technology investments is critical to success and time to value.

This is an area where support from the right partner can make all the difference, as the TrueCommerce survey illustrates. 45% of respondents consider identifying reliable vendors to be a major problem, while 55% are challenged to identify the right technology. 48% are worried about integration with existing systems—a stumbling block on many digital transformation projects.
 
Moving to the cloud magnifies the need for an experienced technology partner. Look for vendors with: 

• A proven track record with the specific ERP, EDI, and other solutions you are considering

• Key industry certifications, such as a SOC 2 report or ISO 27001 certification indicating robust cybersecurity

• Deep integration expertise to seamlessly connect with current investments

• A responsive team that communicates effectively, answers your questions quickly, and instills confidence 

• A proven process that sets clear objectives, establishes achievable timelines, identifies appropriate milestones, and derives comprehensive requirements

It’s important to recognize that cost should not be the only factor in vendor selection. This is a strategic choice for long-term success. Your technology vendor will be critical to your operations—either reducing the risk of supply chain delays or potentially creating or worsening them.

What’s next?

Integrated technology investments can help organizations optimize their supply chains to improve efficiency, minimize delays, and enhance resilience. Finding the right partner with the right expertise can be a significant strategic advantage for long-term success, while also accelerating time to value and maximizing ROI.

For more trending insights on overcoming delays and other supply chain challenges, download the Supply Chain Trends Report 2024 today.