HomeDigital IconsInterview with Ahmed Raza from Visionet Systems

Interview with Ahmed Raza from Visionet Systems

Team eCommerce Next interviewed Ahmed Raza from Visionet Systems to get more insights on solving eCommerce and Supply Chain Connectivity Issues with Digital Solutions. Following is our interview with him:

What are the biggest ecommerce and supply chain issues retailers are experiencing today?

The world has experienced an unprecedented level of disruption beginning with COVID-19, and ecommerce and supply chain are not immune to those disruptions.

Both ecommerce and the supply chain have a heavy dependence on transportation, but shortages amid key segments, such as truck drivers, is a drag on production, distribution, and delivery.

The US economy is heavily dependent on imported goods, and shipping is another area that took a big hit from COVID-19. The crews that load and unload the ships are undermanned, and as a result, getting cargo off of container ships takes more time. Also, the requirement to cancel existing orders or adjusting to sudden surge in demand for certain products is not making life easy for retailers.

This is especially a problem in ecommerce where consumers have become accustomed to free two-day shipping and are looking forward to same day delivery. Good customer service requires visibility into all stages of the purchase process, and that is not made easy by most supply chain management software.

Why is B2B communications so important in ecommerce?

B2B communications is vital to monitoring your supply chain’s integrity. The ability to connect with trading partners and to see their potential is key to creating a supply chain that has control, visibility, and resilience.

A key example is picking the right partners for manufacturing and distribution, to freight and last mile delivery. If you can’t see their potential, you may lose customers waiting for their orders that might have been better served by direct shipment than landing it into a traditional warehouse.

How can a digital supply chain connectivity solution help? Can you give specific examples?

A true end-to-end digital supply chain connectivity solution lets you get a true view into your partner’s potential, whether it’s warehouse space, number of available trucks, or stock levels. With that information, supply chain executives have options to shift or branch into additional partners to avoid the impact of the worst disruptions and get their products into customer hands efficiently.

What should retailers look for in a digital supply chain solution? What problems should they expect it to solve?

One thing to look for in a digital supply chain solution is automation. Does it allow you to take manual steps out of the process, increasing productivity and reducing errors.

The digital supply chain also should be able to detect and direct errors to the appropriate authority as they arise.

Ultimately, through data visibility, control and resilience, the digital supply chain can allow a company to be more forward-looking in their processes and improve collaboration internally and externally.

Why is it important for retailers to have flexibility, visibility and resilience when addressing their supply chain?

In the face of extreme disruption, flexibility, visibility, and resilience are the three pillars of risk mitigation. COVID-19 exposed great weaknesses in supply chains and the end result was bare shelves at retailers and sold out products online.

A flexible, visible and resilient supply chain has risk mitigation built in, and it is possible to see what points along the supply chain are at greatest risk and where you can go for reinforcements.

What is headless commerce and how does a digital supply chain connectivity support this?

Thriving, and often just surviving, in the ecommerce space requires embracing innovation like never before and achieving a breakneck speed to market time. Decoupling the front end from the back end of your ecommerce site allows just that.

The decoupling allows for agile changes to the front end, and also the ability to connect multiple commerce platforms, market places and more to the supply either through your own warehouses or direct and drop shipment vendor without impacting the end customer’s experience.

Integrating headless commerce into your digital supply chain brings all of the advantages of visibility, flexibility, and resilience into your ecommerce pipeline.

About Ahmed Raza

Ahmed Raza is Vice President of PartnerLinQ.  Mr. Raza has extensive experience in design, development and architecting enterprise class software. An excellent communicator, Raza created the concept of PartnerLinQ and pitched it to Visionet’s C suite. Agreeing with his vision, Visionet created PartnerLinQ as its flagship digital supply chain connectivity solution. Mr. Raza has more than 16 years of experience in architecture, design and development for large enterprise systems and has spent the last 8 years as product owner and solution architect on PartnerLinQ.

About Visionet Systems

Visionet Systems is a full-service IT consulting and services company serving global brands. For over 25 years, it has delivered digital solutions and services that help enterprises increase agility, reduce costs, and minimize business risk..

PartnerLinQ is an innovative, cloud-native supply chain visibility platform that delivers resilience through simplifying visibility and connectivity. PartnerLinQ’s Native App Ecosystem adds business context to traditional integrations, minimizing the impact of disruption.

With capabilities for intelligent hyper-automation, multi-channel integration, and real-time analytics, PartnerLinQ seeks to seamlessly connect multi-tier supply chain networks, channels, marketplaces, and core systems worldwide to deliver unified connectivity for the future. For more information, visit www.partnerlinq.net

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