Choosing the Right Supply Chain Unification Partner: 5 Criteria to Evaluate
Discover 5 key traits to look for in a supply chain unification partner, and why the right choice makes or breaks digital transformation success.
In a world of constant disruption, speed of response becomes a competitive advantage.
E7’s SCU replaces fragmentation and delays with visibility, speed, and resilience across your entire supply chain.
In today’s volatile supply chain landscape, disruption isn’t rare. It’s constant. But the real problem isn’t the disruption itself, it’s how slowly most organizations can respond.
Manual workarounds, siloed tools, and disconnected teams turn small issues into costly failures. Without a Unified Supply Chain approach, critical moments are met with confusion instead of clarity. Here’s where that shows up:
Fragmented systems lead to fragmented decisions. Without a central workflow layer, issue escalation, approvals, and incident response are delayed, creating bottlenecks and missed opportunities. Unified Service Management connects the dots and accelerates action.
Disconnected tools and ad hoc processes make it hard to align planning with real-world demand or operational realities. By centralizing requests, documentation, and collaboration, Supply Chain Unification brings coherence to planning cycles, thus improving accuracy and responsiveness.
When every department manages its own workflows, systems, and vendors, coordination becomes inefficient and expensive. Supply Chain Unification brings structure to these processes by reducing rework, streamlining approvals, and cutting operational waste.
When internal teams lack visibility, customers feel it. Missed updates, slow responses, and inconsistent handling of issues erode trust. Supply Chain Unification provides a backbone for consistent, automated customer communication and faster resolution.
Without shared dashboards, real-time alerts, and unified escalation paths, issues remain hidden until it’s too late. Supply Chain Unification enables live monitoring, intelligent routing, and SLA-backed responses that surface problems and trigger resolution faster.
Enterprise scale, with service-orientation of privately held firm
3x
Partner of
the Year
Dedicated to bringing your teams, processes & tools together
50+
Unification
Experts
Global network of services & technology partners
15+
Strategic
Partnerships
Resilience and agility aren’t just goals. They’re outcomes of a connected, intelligent supply chain. One that unifies the way your teams, processes, and data work together. E7’s Supply Chain Unification (SCU) applies Service Management principles across the full supply chain lifecycle to create structure, eliminate fragmentation, and accelerate decision-making.
Aligned to the SCOR (Supply Chain Operations Reference) model, SCU enables cross-functional collaboration and process automation through a unified platform. With shared workflows, real-time visibility, and embedded intelligence, your teams can respond faster, reduce risk, and leverage a supply chain that’s built for change.
Improve end-to-end planning precision by unifying data, workflows, and decision-making across SCOR processes, starting with Plan and extending all the way through Returns.
Unify demand signals, resource plans, and market inputs into a single platform to eliminate versioning issues and misaligned assumptions. By aligning these planning activities with upstream sourcing processes, forecasts become more actionable, and procurement can react with confidence.
Manage plan creation, scenario reviews, and approvals through standardized workflows. These workflows support the SCOR Plan domain by creating a repeatable cadence for decision-making, while ensuring downstream teams in Make and Deliver always have the latest planning context.
Leverage shared portals and Confluence spaces to bring planning into direct collaboration with sourcing, production, and logistics. This tightens the connection between SCOR Plan activities and execution domains (Source, Make, Deliver), improving responsiveness and reducing handoff delays.
Embed automated escalations, structured reviews, and feedback loops directly into Jira workflows to speed up plan adjustments and reduce delays. These efficiencies help optimize the Plan domain itself while enabling faster alignment across all other SCOR processes it informs.
Transform supplier management operations with automated workflows, real-time data and analytics, and centralized compliance management.
Standardized, Service Management-driven workflows streamline onboarding and reduce compliance risks, leading to faster vendor integration and reduced administrative overhead. Accelerate time-to-engagement and reduce manual handoffs, ensuring that planning and procurement timelines stay aligned.
Store supplier profiles, certifications, and contracts in configurable service portals to ensure accessible, auditable records. This not only enforces regulatory and internal compliance but also connects directly to upstream Plan activities, helping planners validate sourcing constraints and qualification status in real time.
Utilize custom workflows with automated alerts and SLA policies to flag delays, exceptions, or contract breaches. These workflows improve governance within Source and enable proactive adjustments across SCOR functions when sourcing issues impact production schedules or delivery windows.
By embedding supplier data and workflows in a shared platform, Source becomes a live, integrated component of the broader supply chain. It enables faster coordination with planning, procurement, and production teams as conditions evolve.
Modernize production operations with connected workflows, real-time monitoring, and rapid incident response to enable greater control, agility, and visibility across the enterprise.
Connect operational systems directly to trigger real-time incident workflows based on production anomalies. This ensures faster response and resolution in SCOR Make processes by embedding escalation protocols into the production environment itself.
Use structured incident tracking and centralized documentation to capture root causes and enable collaboration between production, maintenance, and quality teams. This supports continuous improvement within Make and creates a direct feedback loop to upstream Plan and Source activities.
Deploy SLA-backed monitoring across equipment, production queues, and material flow. Automated alerts highlight deviations in throughput, cycle time, or uptime, allowing teams to act quickly before small issues impact broader SCOR deliverables.
Bring Operational Technology (OT) teams into a shared environment with IT and support staff. This convergence streamlines coordination and reduces mean time to resolution (MTTR), aligning with SCOR's emphasis on integrated, responsive manufacturing operations.
Enhance delivery performance, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction through unified tracking, automated issue resolution, and real-time visibility across the SCOR Deliver domain.
Integrate logistics systems to provide live shipment status updates, automated alerts, and exception routing. This directly supports SCOR Deliver by reducing delivery disruptions, improving on-time performance, and enabling faster resolution when delays occur.
Route delivery failures, damaged goods reports, or shipping inquiries through structured Jira workflows with SLA-backed resolution targets. These workflows enhance responsiveness within Deliver and connect directly to returns (SCOR: Deliver ↔ Return) where necessary.
Deploy branded service portals for distributors, partners, and internal stakeholders to track orders, submit delivery-related requests, or report issues. This reduces manual support load and improves the customer experience — a critical objective of SCOR’s Deliver processes.
Feed delivery status, cost, and exception data back into SCOR Plan and Source domains via dashboards and Confluence documentation. This creates a feedback loop that improves forecast accuracy, inventory management, and future distribution planning.
Monitor carrier performance and enforce logistics SLAs through automated policies and alerts in Jira. This ensures contract compliance while providing the agility to adapt quickly to capacity issues or route disruptions — both key performance drivers within Deliver.
Streamline returns, repairs, and warranty claims through automated workflows, real-time tracking, and structured resolution — closing the loop on the SCOR Return domain with greater speed and insight.
Enable self-service return initiation for customers and distributors, automatically routing requests through structured approval workflows. This supports SCOR R1 and R3 processes by reducing manual handling and ensuring accurate return categorization from the start.
Track every return and warranty claim with SLAs, automated routing, and escalation paths to ensure timely processing. This approach improves performance within Return while also surfacing operational gaps that impact Deliver and Make downstream.
Integrate problem management practices into the Return process to identify recurring product, supplier, or process issues. These insights close the loop with Make and Source, enabling corrective actions that reduce future return volume.
Establish real-time dashboards and reports to provide leadership with clear insights into return trends, SLA compliance, and cost impact. Allow Return to shift from a cost center to a strategic improvement opportunity.
Our client, a global leader in Digital Transformation and Industrial Automation, is the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation. With a focus on making its customers more productive and the world more sustainable, this client is at the forefront of driving innovation in the industry.
Read MoreLearn how E7 can enhance decision-making, mitigate risks, and strengthen supply chain resilience.