Our Secret Sauce
So what makes VisibleLogistics different? Simple - It's the fastest way to share information about Orders and Inventory across all the parties in a supply chain network. This helps everyone 'see' the same information at the same time, identifying problems earlier, reducing delays and avoiding additional costs.
All networks have a social dimension and the easier it is to share information across the community, the easier it is to collaborate and the more effective it becomes. Supply chains are really networks rather than linear chains and VisibleLogistics is designed to share information across a network and between the participants, in a similar manner to that of a social network such as LinkedIn or, in some ways, Facebook.
For example, consider trading partners in a supply chain who want to share order status information. In general, they cannot give each other accounts in their own internal systems, which contain confidential data, and cannot afford to write software to feed data from one to the other. What they need is software that can let them share this data with each other, but not with their other business partners, and without giving one partner more control than another.
Business networking software achieves this by giving each user or organisation control of their own data, letting them control who is in their business network, and what access this gives them. In a way, every user is at the top of their own hierarchy with business partners below, and the rest of the world below that. In fact, a better analogy is overlapping sets of concentric circles - the overlapping business networks.
In the order management example the connections can be automatic, because each new order creates a connection - a business relationship - between a supplier, customer and a transporter. This puts each party in the other's network. Within your own network, you then share information on each order with whoever is also involved in that order - your supplier perhaps - and no-one else.
This is how the business network replaces user role and permission management: instead of one person or company having a fixed role in a software application, they have a different business relationship with each partner. In a supply chain, a company can be a customer and supplier to different partners, rather than both to everyone. In this case, the even better metaphor than the concentric circles is overlapping links in a chain, which is much more like the real-world supply chain than a corporate hierarchy.
Another similarity with social networking, is that we deliver this capability as an on-line 'Service', available through a low-cost monthly subscription. We have always believed that supply chain visibility solutions must be low cost, adaptable and independent of any one organisation in the chain. This avoids the trap of enforced, company specific processes (which are best supported within organisational boundaries) and improves operational agility.
Partnership Opportunities
The Company
BitLogistics Ltd was established early in 2006 to develop and deliver information based services to companies involved in supply chain management and logistics. That same year we also completed the acquisition of Sourceree Solutions Ltd, which was founded in 2000 and is one of the supply chain visibility pioneers that had enjoyed early success in the High Technology, Aerospace and Defence industries.
BitLogistics believes that the internet provides a huge opportunity to transform the way that companies involved in Logistics and supply chain management use information. As businesses evolve into more responsive, demand driven enterprises, many conventional systems will struggle to adapt. With supply chains and production partnerships spread across the globe, the ability to share data with suppliers and sub-contractors, quickly, accurately and coherently will be a competitive advantage. BitLogistics intends to meet this need with innovative, low cost and easy to use solutions.
In many companies, IT staff are struggling to cope with the demands of management hungry for information, but reluctant to commit appropriate resources to do so. This has resulted in frustrated users, defensive information services teams and projects failing to meet their objectives. Our goal is to provide tools that can augment existing internal systems - helping to preserve their value, along with simple solutions that can be quickly adapted to support demands across the extended supply chain network.
The team behind BitLogistics have a blend of experience spanning supply chain operations, advanced technology solution design, development and delivery, plus business development. The shareholders are a group of Dutch, English and US interests, with decades of experience investing in similar business and target markets.
BitLogistics is a UK Registered company with offices in London and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
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