Buried in supply chains are productive supplier collaborations that fail to form due to lack of opportunity. Social learning programs can provide the data to create the analytics that can lead to a best-in-class collaborative supply chain.
By Betty Armstrong

Social learning is the sharing of information among peers using technology, and the collaborative activities become a source of data that might otherwise remain undiscovered. Data is used to develop analytics that serve many purposes, but one of the most important opportunities for businesses in the age of connectivity is the development of supplier connections or networks.

In the supply chain, social learning programs can play an important role in the formation of new collaborations that promote innovation, develop solutions to problems, and improve the responsiveness and efficiency of supply chain processes.

To coax the key analytics from data requires first ensuring the data is "g...