Proactive Notification in Supply Chain Management gives us important and instant information on "breaks" in the supply chain. It could be the EDI system unable to process documents, it could be a parts shortage, or it could be a missed transportation appointment. It is more than a simple notification, it allows us to be proactive by fixing the problem or communicating with other "first responders".

Let's define what we are talking about with Proactive Notification. Let's start by looking at Forrester's definition: "Proactive customer communications reduce costs for incoming calls by sending outbound messages of interest to customers to the device of their choice. Unlike automated robot messages that intrude rather than inform, proactive notification messages identify areas of importance or interest to customers, such as account changes, alerts, or time-sensitive offers. Customers receive voice messages, text/SMS, or email messages and can respond to companies over the same device if needed.

 

Customer service managers find that interactive proactive communications improve customer satisfaction and add value with personalized messages to individual recipients. While these services are typically applied to collections and emergency notifications services, newer customer support and sales and marketing notifications offer greater potential for differentiating services and engaging customers. Anticipating customers' needs before they have to make a call not only saves money in handling customer calls but also creates interest in special marketing offers and services that your customers find valuable."

Let's see some of where else we can utilize Proactive Notification in the supply chain:

• Notification of trading partner updates
• Software updates
• Provide proactive notification of breaks and initiate contingency actions.
• Delivery times and potential delays
• Shipment status
• Supplier relations
• UPS shipments

Lots of other-than-supply-chain unusual things too like physician practices receive proactive notification of payer issues.

Proactive Notification can be part of one of your existing in-place operating systems or it could be a stand-alone system that hooks on to other in-place systems and monitors them. Either way, the objective is to anticipate, spot, and resolve issues before they negatively impact the supply chain. Proactive Notifications are event-driven and enable you to have clear visibility into all data flows such as Managed File Transfer (MFT) and B2B transactions throughout the extended supply chain.

What if you don't have Proactive Notification? Worst case production outage and increased costs (expedited shipments etc.); strained relationships with business partners; numerous individual ad hoc solutions for isolated problems (with additional costs). In retail, multiple ordering platforms (web, EDI, email) ensure that a sale is not missed and you really need Proactive Notification if there are problems.

Proactive Notifications can be sent via Email, SMS and EDI to the appropriate user. For Proactive Notification, any structured data format must be supported, included XML, EDI, flat file, and database .