“Disruption is the new normal. The companies that win will be those that can see sooner, decide faster, and act smarter.” – Gartner, 2024
Today’s supply chains are being stress-tested like never before. McKinsey estimates that companies will lose nearly 45% of a year’s EBITDA over a decade due to supply chain disruptions1. Meanwhile, 81% of supply chain leaders say they lack visibility beyond Tier 1 suppliers, leaving them exposed to unknown risks and cascading failures2.
Despite heavy digital investments, most global supply chains remain stuck in a reactive mode siloed systems, fragmented insights, and blind spots that erode both agility and trust. The gap between data abundance and decision clarity is widening.
And the hidden costs are mounting:
- Emergency logistics and expedited shipping drive up costs by 10% to 20% per event3.
- Supplier churn and lack of performance insights lead to inventory overstocking worth 6% to 12% of working capital4.
In this high-stakes environment, traceability, intelligence, and resilience aren’t just goals, they are lifelines. The future belongs to supply chains that can sense, respond, and evolve in real time.
The Challenges Plaguing Modern Supply Chains
1. Fragmented Architecture and Reactive Operations
Disparate systems across procurement, planning, logistics, and finance often operate in isolation. This fragmentation prevents organizations from connecting the dots between upstream signals and downstream impacts.
According to IDC, 72% of organizations say their supply chain technology landscape is still not fully integrated, leading to delays, inefficiencies, and compliance blind spots5.
2. Mounting Hidden Costs Beneath the Surface
Traditional models optimized for efficiency hide the true financial risks of disruption. For instance:
- Emergency logistics can increase fulfillment costs by up to 22%6
- Poor demand-supply alignment can cause 10% to 15% overstocking7
- Non-compliance fines and missed SLAs result in unplanned financial hits
- Lack of synchronization between manufacturing and planning leads to underutilized capacity and wasted labor hours
These untracked costs quietly erode margins, making resilience a profitability issue—not just an operational one.
3. Lack of Multi-tier Supplier Visibility
While most organizations monitor Tier 1 suppliers, visibility rarely extends beyond them. Yet, risks from Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers such as material shortages, regulatory non-compliance, or geopolitical instability can create ripple effects that disrupt production and customer delivery timelines.
A 2024 Deloitte report states that 65% of supply chain disruptions originate from Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers, highlighting the urgency for deeper network visibility.
4. Inefficiencies in Energy, Water, and Resource Utilization
Disconnected plants and legacy systems make it hard to track utility consumption, emissions, and waste in real time. This leads to:
- 10% to 25% overconsumption of energy and water
- Missed opportunities to deploy automation for throughput optimization
- Lack of environmental data needed for ESG compliance reporting
5. Circularity Blocked by Siloed Feedback Loops
Many enterprises have yet to integrate repair, reuse, and reverse logistics into their core supply chain systems. As a result:
- 15% to 20% of material value is lost in the absence of closed-loop visibility
- Reverse logistics remain a cost center, rather than a value recovery stream
- Product lifecycle data is trapped in disconnected systems, impeding circularity goals
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation emphasizes that companies embracing circular supply chains can unlock $4.5 trillion in economic opportunity—but only with system-wide visibility and digital orchestration8.
How Single Pane of Glass Rescues and Reinvents Supply Chain Intelligence
Coforge’s Single Pane of Glass (SPG) doesn’t just unify data—it unifies decisions. Positioned as a control architecture rather than a mere visualization tool, SPG brings intelligence, transparency, and precision to every stakeholder in the supply chain—from planners to compliance teams.
1. Persona-led Decision Intelligence
SPG doesn’t offer generic dashboards. It delivers role-specific, precision intelligence:
- Planners get predictive inventory alerts.
- Sourcing leads get Tier-3 supplier risk exposure.
- Operations managers track throughput impacts.
Every function views actionable insights in real time—on a single platform.
2. Multi-tier Risk Simulation Engine
SPG pulls from 50+ million data points, including:
- Commodity pricing trends
- Geopolitical indicators
- Weather anomalies
These are mapped to supply nodes to enable risk-weighted sourcing and distribution—not just reaction, but foresight.
3. Proactive Exception Orchestration
Unlike platforms that merely raise alerts, SPG ties disruptions to automated responses.
- A delayed route triggers an alternate shipping carrier.
- A raw material shortfall reroutes procurement in real time.
This reduces firefighting and builds operational agility.
4. Integrated Digital Thread
From raw material to return, SPG captures every transaction, event, and resource interaction, offering:
- Audit-ready traceability
- Closed-loop cost control
- Compliance visibility
No more hunting for data across tools—everything is captured in a seamless, end-to-end thread.
5. Plug-and-Play Integration Spine
SPG seamlessly integrates with ERP (SAP, Oracle), WMS, TMS, PLM, MES, and IoT platforms—connecting both legacy and modern digital systems.
Result: Enterprises gain real-time intelligence without disrupting current operations or overhauling their tech landscape.
The Coforge Edge: Why Transformation Needs More Than Just Technology
Digital acceleration is not about having tools, it's about putting them to work meaningfully. Coforge brings a unique advantage by combining deep domain knowledge with technology execution, ensuring every transformation initiative is rooted in business value.
1. Deep Domain Alignment
Whether it's manufacturing, retail, agribusiness, or consumer goods—Coforge understands the granular dynamics of each value chain, allowing them to design systems that align with sector-specific levers rather than generic best practices.
2. Seamless Digital Integration
Bridging legacy systems with modern cloud platforms is one of the toughest parts of digital transformation. Coforge has proven frameworks to de-risk this process and ensure interoperability across IT and OT ecosystems—ERP, MES, TMS, IoT, and more.
3. Value-centric Execution
Every SPG implementation is mapped to measurable KPIs such as:
- Cost-to-serve reduction
- Inventory turns improvement
- S&OP process alignment
- Supplier performance enhancement
The impact is always tied to the P&L, not vanity metrics.
4. Future-ready Design
Coforge solutions are designed with adaptability in mind:
- Supporting AI-led forecasting
- Enabling resource efficiency metrics
- Aligning with evolving regulatory frameworks
- Operationalizing circular economy models
These aren’t band-aid fixes. They are long-term frameworks for resilient, adaptive, and sustainable supply chains.
Benefits Delivered: The Tangible Outcomes of SPG-led Transformation
With Coforge’s SPG as the control tower of supply chain ecosystems, enterprises are realizing tangible gains across multiple dimensions:
Resilience at Scale
Predictive analytics and AI-driven risk modeling allow organizations to anticipate disruptions—not just react to them. This resilience is not confined to Tier 1—it cascades through Tier 2 and Tier 3 networks, ensuring continuity even during systemic shocks.
End-to-End Transparency
With IoT, blockchain, and cloud integration, organizations gain complete traceability—from source to customer and back. This visibility not only ensures compliance but also builds trust with regulators, investors, and end consumers.
Cost and Margin Optimization
Hidden costs from expedited shipping, inventory overstocking, and supplier churn are addressed through exception orchestration and proactive insights, unlocking 6–10% margin recovery in some cases.
Sustainability Built-In
SPG enables real-time tracking of energy, water, waste, and emissions data. Combined with circular feedback loops and reuse metrics, companies can now align sustainability with business performance—not treat it as a side initiative.
Decision Velocity and Collaboration
The role-specific dashboards and automation capabilities reduce decision latency, enabling faster and more informed responses across planning, sourcing, logistics, and compliance teams.
Conclusion: From Risk Mitigation to Reinvention
As enterprises navigate an era defined by geopolitical realignment, climate-driven scarcity, and digital expectations, intelligence, traceability, and adaptability are the new cornerstones of competitiveness. Coforge’s Single Pane of Glass is more than a platform—it is a mindset shift. From fragmented visibility to unified control. From reacting to anticipating. From chasing metrics to capturing value.
SPG empowers supply chain leaders to step into the future—with clarity, agility, and confidence.
End Notes:
- https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/taking-the-pulse-of-shifting-supply-chains?
- https://sustainabilitymag.com/articles/sphera-cpo-cso-survey?
- https://www.sdcexec.com/transportation/fleet-management/article/22935017/logicsource-why-service-reliability-matters-in-pricefirst-logistics?
- https://www.iwoca.co.uk/working-capital/inventory-management-and-working-capital?
- https://www.idc.com/ap/supply-chain/
- https://networkon.io/resources/blog/logistics-cost-optimization-cutting-waste-boosting-margins-in-e-commerce/?
- https://smartcorp.com/blog/12-causes-of-overstocking-and-practical-solutions
- https://www.kantar.com/press-center/the-ellen-mcarthur-foundation-and-kantar-demystify-the-circular-economy?
