Sustainability = Supply Chain Profitability

The world’s middle class population – and its associated resource consumption – is projected to triple over the next twenty years alone. Constraints on resources will affect virtually every business in every country, regardless of sector or geography. From the raw materials and commodities that are the core ingredients in food and beverage products, to the energy and fuels required by manufacturing plants and transportation sources, the global value chain is increasingly exposed to tighter availability – and to rising, more volatile prices and risks as a result.

More Than Renewable Energy – Efficiency and Effectiveness

In this increasingly perilous business landscape, sustainability is about more than renewable energy sources and reduced energy consumption. It’s about making the most efficient and effective use of all resource inputs and associated costs throughout the entire supply chain. And that makes it all about profitability.

Companies that take the lead on sustainability will be market makers rather than market takers.”

Business Problem: Lack of Integrated, Enterprise –View of Supply Chain

Increased commodity price volatility and global product movements mean sourcing and supply chain management have gotten riskier and more complex. For a business to have long-term viability, managers must look at the raw materials consumed, the type of energy used in operations, the logistics for supply chains, and the potential costs associated with emission regulations. And then they must act to minimize the impact, and the price tag, of each.

Smarter decisions must be made around what, when, and where to source based on a number of factors. These include the market price of commodities, the availability and efficiency of alternative producers, and the cost to transport. These decisions must be based on market conditions, not just cost and budget, and must be made at all points along the supply chain.

Existing Systems Do Not Support a Market-Based Supply Chain

Yet existing system environments dominated by patchwork applications and manual spreadsheets simply don’t allow for this transparency. They don’t provide the advanced functionality for integrated supply and logistics – nor the enterprise view of position and risk – required to most profitably manage the entire supply chain. Instead of driving efficiency and effectiveness, the current systems are creating risk. For organizations, the issue is no longer whether plan and budget were met, but whether better decisions could have been made, resources used more effectively, and more money made based on the behavior of the commodity markets. Could you have sourced at better prices and improved gross margins more?

Commodity XL® enables businesses to profitably navigate the complex world of commodities supply chain management, where a profit focus is synonymous with the most efficient – and sustainable – consumption of commodities. Commodity XL is the most advanced solution available that gives executives and managers a real-time, enterprise-level view of the entire supply chain – including the sourcing, movement, and storage of multiple commodities – on a common platform. It provides complete transparency of the entire “source-to-cash” business process, with all commodities accounted for in the transaction decision. Commodity XL has been designed from the ground up to handle the sourcing, trading, risk management, physical movements, and accounting of commodities on an integrated platform. It provides simulation modelling of various scenarios, along with real-time business intelligence to support smarter supply chain decision-making. It replaces outdated, home-grown software applications and manual, error-prone spreadsheets with the advanced functionality required to manage a true “market-based” supply chain.