The Future Is Bright For Cloud Based Business Planning
The Future Is Bright For Cloud Based Business Planning. I was in the airport this last week when somewhere in the background I could hear a song from back in the 70s that I hadn’t heard in years: “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash. I’ve been humming it for days.
Here’s what Johnny Nash has to say:
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) sun shiny day
Could these be the words of a business planner imagining a day of total supply chain visibility?
I hope not. When recording artists start giving lyrical voice to their supply chain aspirations, it’ll be a sad day for pop music. But as for me, I’ll take my inspiration where I can get it!
I can see clearly now
Seeing clearly is the most important thing that a planner or any decision maker can do. If you don’t have real-time visibility across your supply chain, you can’t sense and respond to supply disruptions. You can’t see surges in demand. You can’t predict a spike due to impending weather patterns or a local event.
I can see all obstacles in my way
One obstacle standing in the way of visibility has always been business silos. Whether your planners are wearing the long hair and corduroys of the 70’s or the business casual attire of today, they’ve always needed to see into the market, across lines of business and across company boundaries in order to accurately forecast demand and coordinate the resources to meet it.
Today, of course, the challenge is only exacerbated by globally dispersed supply chains, market complexity, increased competition, and customers with expectations for getting exactly what they want – immediately.
Gone are the dark clouds that have me blind
In Johnny Nash’s song, his ability to see clearly now is due in part to the fact that the clouds that blind him have now gone away. Ironically, it is the cloud – as in cloud computing – that facilitates visibility when it comes business planning.
