COMMENT: GT Nexus discusses the Greek supply chain

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When we think about the Greek exporting economy, businesses that rely on Greek suppliers will likely be looking at alternative sources to counteract the risk of evaporating credit in the country as the uncertainty continues. It’s important to bear in mind that the Greek crisis is not unlike other kinds of supply chain disruption. Modern companies are vast, global organisations, and they rely on partners all over the world so, when faced with a crisis – whether it is an earthquake in Japan or a tsunami in Thailand that shuts down part of a company’s sourcing operations – the outcome is the same; difficult decisions have to be made. Often, budgets will be pushed aside in order to make any moves necessary to protect the company against stopped production, late inventory and lost sales.

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No access to financing is a big problem for any organisation and can cause rippling effects up and down the supply chain. A new way for companies to mitigate the risk of a trading partner getting cut off from cash needed to fund their operations is to transact via a cloud-based community platform that can provide access to capital, independent of local banks. When all transactions run through the platform, a supplier’s track record as a reliable partner can then be leveraged to secure financing. Instead of providing access to cash based solely on a trading partners’ credit, as is typically the case, funding decisions can be made based on that partners’ performance history. In doing so, cloud can free a company from the confines of the nation in which it is operating in – whether that’s a high interest third-world economy or, pertinently, an economy that is convulsing.

This big data approach to evaluating credit risk can prevent a supplier with a clean track record from becoming an innocent victim of the circumstances. Financing decisions based on big data from the supply chain can help mitigate the risk for all parties involved. In addition, by connecting businesses with their execution partners via a single platform, all the partners along the chain gain a shared version of what is happening anywhere in the network. This also means that businesses can synch their systems and processes and orchestrate as one network, and not a collection of separately optimising companies.

For more information on GT Nexus, please visit: http://www.gtnexus.com/