Enhancements help clients deepen supplier and partner collaboration across multiple tiers, further connect demand to supply planning, and automate more routine decision-making.

E2open Parent Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ETWO), the connected supply chain SaaS platform with the largest multi-enterprise network, has released its second-quarter technology update for 2023 with enhancements for companies to buffer against the complexities in today’s post-pandemic market with advanced technology to deepen supplier relationships and automate routine decision-making.

“The foundation for a responsive and resilient supply chain is the ability to constantly improve discovery and collaboration across multiple tiers of partners that help make, move, and sell goods and services,” said Pawan Joshi, executive vice president of product management and strategy at e2open. “This quarterly update not only includes features that enhance multi-tier structured and unstructured collaboration across partners, but it also includes enhancements to autonomous decision-making by leveraging timely data from across the network, allowing supply chains to operate in a truly connected fashion and ‘Move as one.’ Omnichannel sales data, when connected with demand planning tools leveraging machine learning, improve forecast accuracy; when coupled with novel approval flows, better align supply proposals and ensure tighter and closed-loop alignment with execution processes. Enhanced dashboards continue to drive unified decision-making across logistics and trade by identifying potential duty savings from trade agreement utilization and autonomous decision-making capabilities for optimal transport carrier rate and route selection.”

Some of the primary enhancements in this release include:

Channel

• New centralized lead management capabilities allow partners to see all sales leads (even those imported from external sources) in one view, merge duplicates, clean the data, score, prioritize, assign to users, and track the leads to conversion, driving process efficiency and fewer lost opportunities. This streamlines inefficiencies such as duplicate, inconsistent, or incomplete details spread across multiple systems for sales leads generated through diverse engagements.
• With a new feature designed to improve lead attribution for digital engagement, brands can create trackable auto-populated URL links, embed these links in activities and campaigns, and obtain data to associate the lead with the right partner and execution tactic. This allows brands to understand the actual contribution to value creation, reward non-transactional partners fairly, and direct resources to the most effective activities, campaigns, and partners.

Planning

• Multi-tier demand forecasting is now easier and more effective. Enhancements to the algorithms apply machine learning (ML)-based pattern recognition for creating a more accurate product to SKU-level splitting profile by generating an initial SKU-level forecast. As a result, the SKU-level forecast has less forecast error, and planners can expect up to a 5% improvement in near-term forecasts.
• The challenge of identifying inactive and obsolete products, especially in a complex product hierarchy, is reduced with the statistical forecast engine that now considers recent shipment history and historic seasonality patterns to identify obsolete products faster and remove them from the forecast, resulting in improved forecast quality quickly and intelligently.
• Developing a supply plan requires tight coordination across departments to consider the many interdependencies. Updates to the approval feature allow for more granular control over releasing purchasing proposals to the order management system. Planners gain more independence and flexibility around converting proposals to orders while remaining aligned across departments.

Global Trade

• New analytical dashboard reports help businesses identify opportunities for import duty savings by taking advantage of trade agreements. Coupled with the robust trade content database, companies can easily visualize where potential savings can be found and identify improvement areas.
• The US Food and Drug Administration recently began publishing alerts to advise importers of potentially violative products, placing responsibility on the importer to ensure the products imported into the US comply with the FDA’s admissibility laws and regulations. These product-specific rules are integrated into the import management application to efficiently screen each product, country of origin, or manufacturer that might require special exceptions before the cross-border declaration.
• Import volumes into China via highway transport are escalating, and the need for expedited customs clearance is evident now more than ever. China's Single Window system for declarations now covers road transport, streamlining the process for goods entering or leaving the country via all modes. E2open’s China customs capabilities now allow businesses to submit all necessary customs declarations and supporting documents electronically, reducing paperwork and the risk of errors or delays in the clearance process.
• Organizations diversifying sourcing bases must ensure trade compliance under every government's complex trade policy structure. Exporters moving goods from the Republic of Macedonia can now manage all the required export license controls. As a central manufacturing hub for heavy machinery, steel products, and textile production, the requirements for trade include dual-use restrictions and export licenses for many products.

Logistics

• To reduce the need for last-minute human intervention when shipments are rejected by a carrier, even after the tender was accepted, new autonomous decision-making helps shippers re-book the shipment. The system finds real-time rates from a select group of shipper-approved providers and automatically tenders it to the lowest-cost provider without exceeding benchmark rate thresholds.
• New shipment booking allocation models allow recurring last-mile bookings to be automatically allocated to a specified route based on customer preferences. The system also includes a fallback process to allocate bookings automatically to a specified route based on the suburb and postcode combination when a route territory/zone cannot be found. Dispatchers save time and reduce errors, leading to a more efficient and effective last-mile delivery operation.
• Connecting and coordinating with logistics providers and other partners is essential for third-party logistics providers (3PLs) who manage comprehensive transport planning, operations, and finance for shipments on behalf of their customers. New features that enable trip planners to retain overall control of the trip while segment owners can still manage their sections afford greater coordination and collaboration between all parties, leading to higher efficiency and lower risk.
• For rail clients, advanced reporting capabilities provide a comprehensive view of outstanding accruals, invoices, and audit details in a user-friendly format. Users can make more informed decisions about their shipping operations, identify areas for improvement, and optimize their logistics strategies.

Global Logistics Orchestration

• Shippers frequently reserve capacity using transport orders before final recipient details are known. Enhanced capabilities efficiently manage these capacity reservations. Once the consignee and place of delivery are known, the system automatically re-books all legs of the shipment order, eliminating the need for time-consuming and error-prone manual interventions.
• Introducing due diligence screening to Global Logistics Orchestration, automated denied and restricted party screening (RPS) is performed on all parties when a shipment order originates in the application. Users can quickly navigate from the transaction to the detailed screening results and make a final determination on the individual or entity when flagged for review.
• Shippers can define logistics schedules using transactional data to calculate estimated and planned dates for both in-transit and pre/post-transit events. This capability enables them to allocate resources more efficiently, such as warehouse space, labor, and equipment, based on the updated event schedule. Shippers can minimize idle time, improve productivity, and reduce unnecessary costs.

Supply

• A new feature reduces challenges for brand owners managing complex manufacturing processes, both in-house and contracted. With the bill of materials (BOM) validation feature, companies can track material consumption, validate correct component usage, and handle substitutions when necessary. This provides governance over the contract manufacturer's adherence to the BOM specifications, allowing brand owners to focus on other aspects of their business.
• Easy and direct access to structured supply chain content and unstructured supporting documents, like item specifications and special instructions, is critical to achieving deeper collaboration. Users can now appropriately extend access control to external partners, ensuring secure and efficient document sharing across all tiers.

As a cloud-based platform, e2open consistently brings the best in channel and supply chain management technology to customers. To learn more about the full breadth of updates in each quarterly technology update, clients are encouraged to join e2open's product release webinars through the my.e2open customer portal.

About e2open

E2open is the connected supply chain software platform that enables the world’s largest companies to transform the way they make, move, and sell goods and services. With the broadest cloud-native global platform purpose-built for modern supply chains, e2open connects more than 420,000 manufacturing, logistics, channel, and distribution partners as one multi-enterprise network tracking over 14 billion transactions annually. Our SaaS platform anticipates disruptions and opportunities to help companies improve efficiency, reduce waste, and operate sustainably. Moving as one.^™ Learn More: www.e2open.com.

E2open and “Moving as one.” are the registered trademarks of E2open, LLC. All other trademarks, registered trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.

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