Sourcemap, a company launched out of MIT in 2007 initially as a project then as a business in 2011, offers companies a way to manage their supply chain through social media. What they have offered is mapping of where companies source items and a way to track and share those maps.
Coming soon from Sourcemap will be an enterprise edition that will offer:
- Supply Chain Mapping: a secure, online repository of all the nodes and links in the end-to-end supply chain
- Emergency Response: information at your fingertips on every product, every site, every shipment
- Business Continuity Planning: an automated solution for prioritizing value at risk across the organization
- Real-time Alerts: verified, instant notifications whenever a natural or human threat could impact your supply chain
- Messaging and File Sharing: keep track of audits, quality, and sustainability by working on shared datasets with your vendors
- Optimization: an automated way to reduce costs, shorten cycle times, and shrink inventory
If you look at examples like WalMart where they had sourced clothing from Bangladesh (the scene of a disastrous fire and mistakes by WalMart), the need for organizations to better track and engage with suppliers is becoming increasingly important.
Lessons for others
Tools like Sourcemap will allow organizations and customers to make better decisions about what they buy and from whom. In an article by David Weaver he explains three key benefits to using social media with managing supply chain.
- Strengthening supplier relations
- Creating transparency
- Enhancing internal processes and communication
Using social media to engage the world economy on this level is certainly a positive step in the growing utility of a connected world.
Web references:
- Inventory and Supply chain Blog by David Weaver
- Sourcemap
- Enterprise – New Platform
- Huffington post – Walmart example
Submitted By: Carrie Murphy-Rodgers, SMBP Student, University of Waterloo
To contact the author of this entry please email at: cjmurphy@uwaterloo.ca
If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Programme Director, Social Media for Business Performance.