Vertaeon: Ushering in a New Era in Supply Chain Analytics

Rekha Menon-Varma, Co-founder & Managing Partner

Data analytics providers are frequently portrayed as modern-day ‘business astrologers’ who predict the highs and lows of a business. However, there are limitations in what traditional providers can predict—driven largely by gaps in data and robustness in analytics applied. Atlanta-based Vertaeon has developed solutions from a different vantage point; a flexible product architecture, a modular design for specific data collection, in-depth analytics, and a focus on providing holistic insights and effectively linking them to strategic initiatives in enterprise risk and corporate sustainability.

Vertaeon leverages over 60 years of combined industry experience in delivering supply chain (both from supply-side and customer-side) analytics solutions to B2B and B2C corporations. Vertaeon’s offerings provide comprehensive insights on supplier performance, market growth and energy footprints, and utilizes predictive analytics to identify operational excellence as well as potential risk levels.

With data analytics still evolving, enterprises encounter several challenges trying to leverage advances in this area. First is the lack of proper means to collate all the relevant internal and external data into a single place. This inability results in lost opportunities and under-utilization of data related to energy, environmental and social footprints in manufacturing and supply chains. By integrating the capabilities of pure software providers and consulting firms into one, Vertaeon provides web-based, batch, and continuous data-feed capabilities, and in addition makes implementable recommendations to its clients.

The second challenge is the limited utilization of available data. Vertaeon solves this impediment with its architecture that allows multiple (data) source and type integration along with basic and advanced level analytics including predictive modeling and optimization. Therefore, Vertaeon’s clients can avoid evaluating or buying multiple sources/ products in the area of supplier analytics.

The third challenge is the inability to effectively communicate findings, and tailoring relevant messages to the audience.

Vertaeon’s supply chain analytics solution helps corporations truly understand their suppliers’ environmental and resource footprints, compliance violations, and risk impacts in environmental, social and governance (ESG) areas

A one-size-fits-all approach to communication frequently means reports and dashboards are deemed redundant by upper management. Vertaeon addresses this issue by providing granular reports at the departmental level and a summarized, strategic, view for facilitating decision making at the senior management level.

The inability to effectively collate internal and external supply chain data onto a common platform translates to inefficient analysis and a limited view of supplier performance. For a corporation, this means increased vulnerability to unexpected events and associated financial and reputational impacts. The core product, Vertaeon supply chain analytics solution, helps corporations truly understand their suppliers’ environmental (emissions including greenhouse gas) and resource footprints, compliance violations, facilities, and risk impacts in environmental, social and governance (ESG) areas. The resulting comprehensive assessment of overall risk factors enables the development of actionable steps towards supplier sustainability and enterprise risk mitigation.

Vertaeon also has expertise on the sell-side of the supply chain, covering market and customer analytics towards growth opportunity identification. This solution covers industry and market assessment, segmentation at the consumer and product level and benchmarking at product attribute level. Techniques such as segmentation and spend analytics are also applicable at the supplier-side.

Vertaeon considers energy data assessment an extension of its supply chain solution, given energy is a key variable cost item in operations. Vertaeon’s energy analytics can assess utility and facility data delivering valuable insights on energy purchase, energy generation, and consumption, and use patterns at the aggregate and site level. At the site level, the variability analytics can provide perspectives on how to improve energy efficiency and reduce costs.

Adding value to the services offered by Vertaeon is its ‘data analytics piloting project.’ The low-cost pilot project reduces associated project uncertainty by defining how an organization’s data can be mapped onto Vertaeon’s product architecture. Initial insights towards operational excellence, risk mitigation or market growth are developed from this. Pilot projects typically include an assessment of overall objectives and the target audience. A plan is subsequently laid to meet the client’s data availability and data analytics needs.

The firm, in the near future, aims to partner with third-party data providers to offer seamless solutions and be the primary source of analytics and insights for its customers. Vertaeon strives to develop superior data analytics solutions that deliver winning insights at improved cost-benefit ratios to its corporate clients.