Beyond Band-Aid Solutions: Complete Inventory Visibility During S/4HANA
Consolidating 22 ERPs to 1 while maintaining your award-winning supply chain excellence
As a consistent Gartner Top 25 supply chain leader, your Credo-driven commitment to patients and healthcare providers is unmatched. Yet your current transformation presents unique challenges: limited inventory visibility and dependency on 4PLs using InfoNexus, making it difficult to fulfill your Credo promise that “customers’ orders must be serviced promptly and accurately.”
What if you could reduce safety stock by 20% while gaining complete network transparency across inbound, inter-company, and outbound flows – all without burdening your IT team during this critical transition?
Pain Points that Need Relief
Your S/4HANA transformation from 22 ERPs to 1 creates the perfect opportunity to address the supply chain challenges that Bineetha and Nilson identified in our Gartner discussions. Based on your specific feedback, we understand your key pain points to be:
- Limited Inventory Visibility: As you mentioned, while you manage transactional tracking well, you “don’t use inventory information to your benefit” and need a more intelligent way to leverage this data
- 4PL Dependency with InfoNexus: You’re looking for alternatives to reduce 4PL reliance from your current model
- Comprehensive Network View: You’ve expressed interest in solutions that span “inbound, inter-company, and outbound use cases” for complete supply chain visibility
The Right Prescription
We deliver complete supply chain transparency and control that spans your inbound, inter-company, and outbound operations – helping you to maintain your award-winning supply chain excellence during your S/4HANA transformation. Our approach addresses your specific needs:
End-to-End Inventory Visibility
Track inventory across manufacturing, distribution centers, and field locations with digital models that show real-time status and risk levels of every SKU
Enhanced Supplier Engagement
Automatically turn vendor invoices and other documents into trackable orders to seal any visibility gaps within your supplier collaboration network
Predictive OTIF Command Center
Transform reactive tracking into proactive prevention by predicting delivery failures weeks to months in advance, preventing penalties that can cost 3-5% of order value
SAP-Integrated Intelligence with Zero IT Burden
Our solution seamlessly integrates with your S/4HANA through proven connectors that minimize IT resource requirements during your critical transformation
Hands-Free Resolution
Tap into AI automations that understand your business and can proactively remedy a predicted exception on your behalf 24/7/365
Healthy Results: Recovery Stories
Cardinal Health
Challenge: Cardinal Health required 100+ customer service personnel to manually access tracking information. During their supply chain transformation, they needed a more efficient way to manage their healthcare products.
Solution: We implemented a “push” architecture that continually updates tracking as soon as events occur, eliminating manual processes and providing proactive exception management.
Proof: “Without predictive visibility, you get super reactive—but it’s after the bad stuff is already happening. The customers already felt that pain. What we’re doing with this platform is allowing the technology to start to make decisions much quicker, so that you can really mitigate pain, disruption, et cetera.” — Josh Dolan, Vice President of Global Logistics, Cardinal Health
Impact
Information latency reduced from hours to minutes
Improved tracking of temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals
Enhanced customer service with proactive notifications
Significant labor cost reduction in customer service
Medtronic
Challenge: Medtronic struggled with high SG&A costs and excess inventory in field locations. Limited visibility to customer shelf stock and “trunk stock” led to significant working capital locked in field locations.
Solution: We enabled a transition from a field stock model to a hybrid approach combining limited field inventory with visibility-enabled rapid fulfillment as surgeries are scheduled.
Proof: The Medtronic implementation demonstrated that a hybrid inventory model with enhanced visibility could maintain high customer service levels while significantly reducing field inventory. As shown in their supply chain transformation materials, this approach addressed both working capital concerns and service level requirements.
Impact
Significant reduction in field inventory requirements
Improved visibility into trunk stock locations
Early detection of potential stockout risks
Reduced obsolescence of difficult-to-track field stock
Unilever
Challenge: During a period of supply chain disruption, Unilever struggled with border crossing delays that threatened on-time delivery performance.
Solution: Unilever used our custom geofencing capability to create automated alerts for shipments entering, exiting, or being delayed at borders.
Proof: “By implementing end-to-end visibility and 24-hour tracking updates, our team was able to reduce outbound calls made to carriers, drivers, and transporters seeking shipment updates.” — Trevor Nagan, Transport Execution Lead, Unilever South Africa
Impact
Over 2,500 targeted notifications for delays were automatically sent
Proactive customer communication maintained service levels
Enabled both immediate corrective action and historical trend analysis
Your Supply Chain Wellness Plan
Operational Benefits
Operational Benefits
- Weeks to Months Earlier Warning: Detect potential supplier delays before they impact production
- 70%+ Less Time on Manual Tasks: Automated processes handle routine updates without human intervention
- Enhanced Customer Service: Prevent disruptions before customers are impacted
Financial ROI
Financial ROI
- 20%+ Lower Safety Stock Needed: Maintain service levels with less inventory
- 60%+ Fewer Expedited Shipments: Address potential delays proactively
- 40-85% Cost Savings: Reduced demurrage/detention costs and delayed shipments
- 5-20% Margin Improvement: Better inventory management and reduced costs lead to improved margins
Strategic Value
Strategic Value
- Fulfill Your Credo’s First Responsibility: Ensure patients, doctors, and nurses receive the products they need when they need them
- Service Customer Orders “Promptly and Accurately”: Directly support your Credo commitment with proactive inventory management
- Support Your Business Partners’ Success: Help your distributors and healthcare providers operate efficiently
Ready for a supply chain check-up?
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