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What is supply chain visibility?

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Overview

Build a more intelligent supply chain operation with OpenText™ Business Network

Supply chain visibility is the ability to track and trace products and related financial and information flows as they move through the supply chain, from sourcing raw materials to final customer delivery. This includes inventory and logistics activities, event statuses, process milestones, and KPIs.

Supply chain visibility

Why is supply chain visibility important?

Modern supply chains operate in a global and fast-paced environment, where disruptions are an ever-present fact of life. From mitigating the impact of major disasters to optimizing cost-efficiency of day-to-day operations, organizations need supply chain visibility to enable timely and informed decision-making. Supply chain visibility solutions play an essential role in supporting a range of business objectives and requirements, including:

  • Regulatory compliance: Meeting evolving requirements like the EU digital product passport, the U.S. FDA’s FSMA 204 rules, and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
  • Risk management: Quickly identifying and responding to issues such as logistics disruptions, supplier business continuity, quality failures, or safety incidents.
  • Brand protection: Combating counterfeiting and grey market diversion.
  • Operational resilience: Detecting and resolving inefficiencies, delays, and errors across the supply chain.
  • Consumer trust: Demonstrating transparency by showing where products come from, how they’re made, and how your operations impact people and the planet.

What are the benefits of supply chain visibility?

Businesses that leverage comprehensive supply chain visibility solutions, particularly those delivering real-time supply chain visibility across their operations, benefit in several ways. Some of the key benefits include:

  • Faster issue resolution: The ability to quickly identify and address errors and exceptions in supply chain processes reduces their business impact.
  • Enhanced operational efficiency: A detailed understanding of what’s going on in the supply chain helps identify specific improvement opportunities.
  • Better customer satisfaction: Addressing issues before they impact customers and sharing more accurate insights improves performance against customer expectations.
  • Improved supplier collaboration: The ability to share accurate and timely data with suppliers improves both planning and execution and helps avoid ambiguity in supplier discussions.
  • Smarter planning and risk management: Better visibility into the various aspects of supply chain operations, as well as the different network participants, enables more informed decisions from overall network design to operational planning and forecasting.
  • Increased sustainability: A better understanding of the environmental impact of supply chain operations and available alternatives helps guide and enforce sustainable business practices.
  • Regulatory readiness: Maintaining auditable records and generating reports easily on demand supports meeting various types of compliance requirements.

What are the challenges in achieving end-to-end supply chain visibility?

Achieving true end-to-end supply chain visibility is complex because global supply chains often involve many tiers of partners, each with different systems, data formats, and levels of digital maturity. Disconnected technologies, manual processes, and reluctance to share information create gaps that make it difficult for an individual organization to form a complete picture.

Some of the common challenges that businesses face include:

  • Siloed data prevents businesses from forming a complete view of their supply chain, with critical information scattered across multiple platforms, locations, and trading partners.
  • Inconsistent data standards across stakeholders including variations in formats, terminology, and technology make it difficult to integrate and exchange information seamlessly.
  • Limited digitization among suppliers reduces the amount of data that is available, particularly with smaller organizations that still rely heavily on manual or paper-based processes.
  • Reluctance to share data across the supply chain creates transparency gaps, as some partners are unwilling to disclose operational details due to trust, privacy, or competitive concerns.
  • High implementation costs and skills requirements for technologies such as IoT sensors, advanced analytics, and data platforms can be a barrier, particularly for smaller and budget-conscious organizations.

Which industries benefit most from supply chain visibility?

While supply chain visibility adds value across all sectors, it’s especially critical for industries that are:

  • Highly regulated
  • Complex and global
  • Risk-sensitive
  • Brand-driven

Examples of industries include:

  • Pharmaceuticals: Meet DSCSA and ensure patient safety through serial number tracking.
  • Food and beverage: Comply with FSMA 204 and recall tainted batches without impacting entire product lines.
  • Automotive: Track parts across multi-tiered suppliers to manage recalls and quality assurance.
  • Luxury goods: Authenticate high-value products and prevent grey market sales.
  • Consumer electronics: Verify sourcing, detect component-level failures, and support repair or recycle flows.

How can companies improve supply chain visibility?

Implementing the right technologies to capture, visualize, share and analyze data across the relevant supply chain processes is the core foundation of supply chain visibility. Supply chain visibility solutions leverage various types of data sources and platforms to deliver the desired functionalities, including:

  • Digital identifiers such as QR codes, RFID tags, NFC chips, and blockchain tokens, which give each product or component a unique, trackable identity.
  • IoT sensors that monitor real-time conditions like temperature, humidity, shock, and location, providing continuous visibility into product handling and storage.
  • Cloud-based integration platforms that connect internal systems (such as ERP, MES, and WMS) with external partners, creating a unified data flow across the value chain.
  • AI and advanced analytics that detect anomalies, predict disruptions, and optimize inventory, logistics, and sourcing decisions.
  • Mobile applications that allow field teams to scan items, verify authenticity, and log activities from any location.

How are supply chain visibility, traceability, and transparency different?

Although often used interchangeably, visibility, traceability, and transparency refer to different but related concepts.

  • Supply chain visibility refers to the overarching ability to track and monitor products as well as the related financial and information flows as they move through the supply chain.
  • Supply chain traceability describes the ability to record and reconstruct the full history of a product, material, or component to trace where it came from, how it was handled, and what changes it underwent.
  • Supply chain transparency is the act of sharing traceability or other data openly with customers, suppliers, partners, or other stakeholders. It reflects a company’s willingness to disclose meaningful insights, such as ethical sourcing practices or carbon footprint, to build trust or meet compliance requirements.

How does OpenText help with supply chain visibility?

OpenText helps enterprises drive deeper visibility and control across complex global operations with supply chain visibility solutions in the OpenText™ Business Network portfolio. Key solutions include OpenText™ Core Product Traceability Service, OpenText™ Aviator™ IoT, and OpenText™ Trading Grid™ Command Center.

OpenText Core Product Traceability Service

With OpenText Core Product Traceability Service, businesses can assign and manage unique identifiers to their products, enabling a range of use cases from brand protection and digital consumer engagement to tracking products throughout the supply chain and providing full product traceability.

Aviator IoT

Aviator IoT provides an easy-to-deploy solution for real-time shipment and asset tracking, leveraging a range of sensor technologies that best fit each specific use case. The flexible IoT end-point connectivity is combined with robust security, powerful analytics, and easily configurable end-user dashboards.

OpenText Trading Grid Command Center

OpenText Trading Grid Command Center provides visibility into supply chain data exchange through analyzing transactional data processed on the OpenText™ Trading Grid™ integration platform and enriching contextual insights to add meaning and inform action.

Related products

OpenText™ Core Product Traceability Service

Reduce counterfeits, better manage returns and recalls by proofing product authenticity, track your supply chain end to end, and protect your brand reputation.

OpenText™ Aviator™ IoT

Securely track assets and shipments with an identity-driven IoT platform powered by AI.

OpenText™ Trading Grid™ Command Center

Drive deeper supply chain analytics from your B2B transactions with a versatile supply chain command center.

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