Leveraging AI-Enhanced Automation for Data Onboarding in Supply Chain Management

Today’s supply chains are all about speed. With global consumer expectations rising in the digital age, companies face mounting pressure to maintain agile, fast supply chain operations for enhanced customer engagement and lifetime value.

Supply chain management (SCM) software companies are key enablers of this transformation. By providing comprehensive, real-time insights across the entire supply chain—from sourcing and production to shipping and delivery—these solutions empower businesses to stay efficient, gain a competitive edge, and drive growth.

To fully capitalize on these insights, customers need their chosen SCM software to integrate diverse data sets from multiple sources quickly and efficiently. Forward-thinking software vendors make this a reality by streamlining data imports through AI-enhanced automation. Discover how you can lead the transformation with this guide.

Data diversity in the supply chain brings challenges to customer onboarding

SCM software solutions have evolved to help companies streamline and manage their supply chains more effectively—especially in response to increasing global regulations like the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). In 2023, the global market size for supply chain management software reached 18.8B US dollars, projected to grow to 50B US dollars by 2032.

From sourcing raw materials to delivering finished products, these software solutions not only automate many aspects of the physical supply chain but also offer comprehensive business insights to help companies optimize processes for efficiency, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.

To accomplish this, integrating data from various sources is key. Still, with data volumes and complexity growing across global supply chains, importing, validating, and cleaning data in supply management becomes increasingly complex. Therefore, relying on manual workflows for data onboarding may limit an SCM software company’s ability to foster resilience and facilitate growth.

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Manual data onboarding can be inefficient and error-prone

Whether handled internally by customer success (CS) or engineering teams or managed directly by customers, a manual data onboarding process often results in errors and inefficiencies.

Over time, it can undermine customer trust and divert resources away from essential strategic initiatives. Let’s take a closer look at how SCM software companies typically approach customer data onboarding:

• A customer sends various large data sets from an enterprise resource planning or warehouse management system, such as inventory levels, order details, or supplier information. Since this data can’t be fully processed via API, the CS managers must spend hours reformatting the data to fit their predefined CSV template and internal data structure.
• Next, they try to upload the CSV sheet using a basic in-house data importer but quickly hit a roadblock: Hundreds of validation errors prevent the import, leaving the team unsure about how to address them. The high cost and effort of further development prevent this custom-built tool from effectively flagging all errors.
• As the team dives into a lengthy email exchange with the customer to sort out the template, another customer adds to the data onboarding challenge: They bring in new data formats and structures that the in-house importer can neither accommodate nor validate.
• Due to this drawback, the CS managers repeatedly find themselves manually reformatting data. Sooner or later, they ask the product team to reallocate developer resources and help import the data.
• Unlike the CS managers who bring supply chain-specific knowledge to the table, developers may lack this specialized understanding. As a result, there are often lengthy back-and-forths between teams to align different systems and ensure a smooth data transfer without any loss.

This is just one approach SCM software companies use for customer data onboarding. Others involve creating custom data import scripts or implementing native integrations to import data regularly from customer-specific systems.

Although seemingly different, all these methods can be labor-intensive and often lead to organizations wasting valuable time and resources that could be better spent on more value-added activities. In supply chains, time wasted on manual data imports can directly affect profitability.

Simplify data imports through AI-enhanced automation

The challenges outlined above highlight the need for a data onboarding strategy that embraces efficient, automated import workflows. Integrating data onboarding technology into your supply chain ecosystem can save you time and resources for more impactful endeavors.

By combining automation and artificial intelligence (AI) within a dedicated data onboarding solution, you can ensure faster, higher-quality, and more cost-effective import processes—enabling you to adapt to evolving requirements while maintaining the focus on delivering value to customers quickly and efficiently.

Reduced customer onboarding time with faster data imports

Data onboarding technology significantly cuts the time needed to onboard new customers in supply management software by automating data import workflows. This way, for example, a manufacturing company can seamlessly onboard new suppliers, ensuring timely access to crucial materials and components needed for production without delays.

Effortless import of diverse and unpredictable data in various formats

A data onboarding solution can handle various data formats effortlessly—from CSV and Excel to JSON, XML, and PDF—making it straightforward for companies like ecommerce platforms to consolidate product information from suppliers who might use different data file formats. This helps them ensure that the product catalog stays current with hardly any human intervention.

Improved data quality with fewer errors

Automating data validation and cleaning through data onboarding technology ensures higher data quality with fewer chances for errors. For example, procurement teams can quickly verify supplier information and purchase orders—reducing discrepancies and ensuring accurate data entry into their ERP systems. This streamlined process enhances supplier management and strengthens overall supply chain efficiency.

Empowering customers with self-serve data imports

With more time, seamless workflows, and increased data quality, SCM software vendors no longer need to manage every data import internally. With this improved setup, they can encourage all stakeholders involved in the supply chain to import data directly into the system. Providing a user-friendly, white-labeled interface for self-serve data imports can further elevate the customer experience.

Embrace automated data onboarding with nuvo

You can unlock all these benefits and more with nuvo. The German-based data onboarding technology provider brings innovation to the market with its Data Importer SDK. Enhanced by AI, nuvo learns your preferences from the initial import, with human intervention reserved only for critical, nuanced adjustments.

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‍Forward-thinking businesses turn to nuvo to simply the onboarding of diverse datasets in compliance with GDPR, securing three key advantages:

• Improved time to value for customers by onboarding high-quality data more quickly and efficiently
• Increased customer satisfaction by saving time and resources to invest in your core product
• Scaling and driving revenue growth by serving more customers

Integrated with nuvo, SCM software platforms ensure that end-users consistently gain a comprehensive view of their supply chain operations, enhancing efficiency and enabling informed decision-making. With this ability, they can effectively adapt to the dynamic challenges of managing supply chains at scale and maintain long-term profitability.

If you're ready to discover nuvo’s innovative solutions, book a call with our team, and we will happily guide you through every step of the process.