At a recent supply chain CEO conference in Amsterdam, organised by Eyefortransport, I was fascinated to hear a new phrase frequently used by German and Dutch colleagues “The Swivel Chair Syndrome”. When explained it proved to be an excellent metaphor for one of the major problems in the modern supply chain – Lack of Visibility.

The point they were making so graphically was that because there was no integration of legacy and newer supply chain solutions, they had to be accessed individually. So imagine the lot of the manager sitting at his desk swivelling between computer screens to try to pull together the information he needs. It is an impossible task because by the time he has found it all, pulled it together and made sense of it – it is almost certainly too late.

One of the greatest benefits of the latest web technologies applied as cloud computing is the ease of integrating disparate systems to enable one source of information and one version of the truth. As companies seize this opportunity the days of the logistics manager’s swivel chair will be numbered.