Suppliers face a challenging year, and actionable data is critical to their success. A recent survey report by SPS Commerce and Supply Chain Dive’s studioID revealed the challenges at the top of suppliers’ minds: inventory management, better insights into retailer sales, greater inventory data visibility and compliance with retail partner requirements.

In a survey of 150 supply chain executives working for U.S. suppliers, data’s role in easing these challenges and improving agility for supply chain organizations came into clearer focus. The survey highlighted six other insights about supplier challenges over the past year and how prepared they feel their organizations are to handle challenges in the next year:

1. Only a quarter of respondents felt their organization handled disruptions very well in the past year. A further 43% said their organization’s response was good but not great.
2. Data was instrumental in guiding suppliers’ responses to disruptions in the past year: 43% focused on optimizing inventory management and 41% leveraged sales and inventory data to enhance agility.
3. Data-related challenges emerged as one of the most pressing technology issues for suppliers over the past year. Forty-one percent struggled with analyzing sales and inventory data across channels, 39% encountered difficulties in sharing order data with partners and 37% faced obstacles in sharing inventory data.
4. Suppliers feel prepared for the next supply chain disruption—but not very prepared. Only 43% feel confident about their organization’s ability to handle the next big challenge, while 53% feel somewhat prepared.
5. Respondents felt that data and technology could have the greatest impact in helping their companies become more agile. Nearly half (47%) said better sales and inventory data management would be most important, and other areas of opportunity included investing in more data tools (42%) and investing in automation/modernization of their supply chains (40%).
6. Most respondents (67%) believe their organizations’ steps to become more agile yielded a positive ROI. A quarter of respondents have not yet seen a significant difference between costs and benefits, and just 3% believe the steps have had a negative ROI.

“Improved data visibility and analysis tools provide a factual view of what’s happening in your business that all teams can access,” said Tony Thrasher, Senior Director of Product Management at SPS Commerce. “Agile organizations that have invested in better data management and analytics are better able to put inventory in the right place at the right time,” Thrasher added, emphasizing that this helps minimize challenges like speed to fulfillment, cost of returns, sustainability/ESG requirements and more.

One survey respondent summed up data’s role in their organization: “For us, improving our inventory visualization and real-time monitoring systems allows us to better understand our inventory situation, discover and solve problems in a timely manner and better meet our customers’ needs.”

Read the full survey report, “Data Management and Analysis Challenges Hinder Supplier Agility,” on the SPS Commerce website.