Mitigate Supply Chain Disruption with AI-Native MDM

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2023. We’ve updated the content to reflect the latest information and best practices so you can stay up to date with the most relevant insights on the topic.

In today’s dynamic business environment, global supply chains are often under attack. From economic uncertainty and geopolitical unrest to extreme weather events and worldwide shortages of parts and labor, supply chains are facing disruptions every day. Add to the mix of external forces the myriad of disparate, siloed systems and departments, and incomplete, incorrect data, and the supply chain challenges continue to mount. Collaboration between supply chain, finance, and procurement is key to staying ahead of disruptions. But too often, these departments fail to collaborate, exposing their organizations to undue risk. And that makes supply chain management a CEO-level concern. 

Savvy organizations, however, realize that to overcome their challenges, they must address both business-related and data-related issues. And they’re doing so through data mastering and data enrichment.

Bridging the Digital and Departmental Divide

One of the biggest challenges facing organizations today is the proliferation of systems and data. Data is growing at an unprecedented rate, as is the number of systems that store it. But much of the data is dirty, incomplete, duplicative, or out-of-date. And when your data is bad, so, too, are the insights you gather from it.

That’s why organizations struggle to answer simple questions such as “Who are my top suppliers?” and “Which supplier is my largest based on spend?” Without a 360-degree view of supplier data across systems and departments, these questions are difficult, if not impossible, to answer. And when the data varies across supply chain, finance, and procurement systems, it’s even harder to know which insights to trust. This is where supplier master data management becomes critical: ensuring you have a single, trusted view of suppliers.

Tamr’s AI-native master data management (MDM) platform helps organizations address the challenges with supplier data by integrating information across systems and silos, providing the clean, curated, accurate data needed to make informed supply chain decisions. By connecting internal and external data together, Tamr delivers a comprehensive, 360-degree view of all your suppliers and your activities with them.

Using advanced AI and machine learning, Tamr intelligently integrates your data, allowing you to reconcile disparate sources and improve the quality of your data. It also allows you to keep humans in the loop with a simple workflow to provide valuable feedback, ensuring that the results are of the highest quality while keeping manual intervention at a minimum. 

In addition, Tamr allows you to enrich your internal data with trustworthy external sources so that it is complete and accurate for analytical and operational use cases. For example, firmographic data from Dun & Bradstreet can enrich your current supplier data so you can better understand your vendor landscape, while validation services can check the data you have against external sources to ensure that your systems have the most up-to-date and accurate version of the data. 

Creating a Sustainable Supply Chain

In addition to mitigating real and potential disruptions, organizations are also under pressure to create more sustainable supply chains. New regulations around the world not only encourage this, but also require compliance with guidelines focused on sustainability, human rights, and security. 

Unfortunately, for many organizations, the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data about their suppliers is often incomplete, leaving supply chain leaders unable to determine which of their suppliers are strong in sustainability and which are not. The good news, however, is that ESG data exists—it’s just external to the organization. But using Tamr, organizations can enrich their internal data, increasing its quality and making it more complete.

Tamr’s AI-native MDM harnesses the power of external data sources by enabling organizations to enrich their internal data with sustainability data from reputable sources. That way, you can feel confident that your analytics always reflect the most accurate, up-to-date information about your suppliers and their sustainability commitments so you can make informed choices on the best partners for your business. 

Stay Ahead of Future Disruption

While supply chain disruptions will never totally go away, having holistic, trustworthy insights into your producers, vendors, manufacturers, and transporters is essential. Effective supply chain master data management helps anticipate vulnerabilities and mitigate them before they cause massive disruption to your operations—so you can keep business running smoothly and confidently plan for what’s ahead.