| |October 20179CIOReviewcomplex networks of suppliers, manufacturers, customers, products, services, ports, governments and regulatory bodies, freight forwarders, transport and communication infrastructures, information systems and technologies, cultures and most importantly disruptions, any development or change in the external world that has a direct or indirect influence on any of the factors affecting these networks and their constituents, is bound to affect the supply chain, in turn affecting organizations' operational efficiency. So it follows that the control of these networks needs to be integrated. And information, by far, is the most effective tool which can equip organizations with this integrated control. Of course, it needs to be used, processed and consumed effectively and to do so, the systems and technology needs to be evaluated and deployed on certain well defined success criteria.In Supply Chain Management, as in many other areas of management, information is mainly used at two levels ­ transactional and strategic. This is besides the master data viz. items, locations, partners, customers, etc. representing more or less established elements of an organization and its business. These are data which seldom change or get processed on a daily basis. Information about orders, inventories, deliveries, import and export declarations, bills of entry, shipping bills, etc. are transactional data which get processed daily or even more frequently. Data on demand forecasts, sales trends, price and currency fluctuations, tariff schedules, currency exchange rates, regulatory content and updates, etc. are of strategic type mainly because they are likely to have already undergone some level of processing before they are sourced by an organization and also because they are used for analyses and decision-making by senior executives. Information management is effectively collecting, processing and consuming these data. Efficient technology is what provides a framework to collect these data, a mechanism to process it and a medium to exchange it to facilitate consumption at the desired time and location.The basic goal of managing sup-ply chains is to maximize profitability through increased revenues, reduced costs and optimizing resources while achieving customer delight through high quality products and services at competitive prices and increased speed of delivery. An information system and technology that is aligned with this basic goal would count as the best supply chain informa-tion system and technology. However, this is most likely to sound too simplistic and generic to address the spe-cific complexities arising out of the continuously chang-ing business requirements especially in this age of supply chain disrup-tions. For instance, Japanese tsunami in 2011 left the world auto industry reeling for several months. This was mainly because leading auto manu-facturers like Toyota had designed their systems to operate on lean sup-ply chain with just a few hours of inventory. Regulatory changes could disrupt supply chains as much as natural disasters. Supreme Court of India's judgment of 29 March 2017, to stop sale or registration of BSIII (Bharat Stage III) vehicles from 01 April 2017 and upgrade to BSIV, almost threw the Indian automotive two-wheeler industry in panic. Shops gave out instant discounts to get rid of BSIII vehicles, ran out of stock and eventually were forced to shut down for a day to avoid chaos due to po-tential customers. This not only high-lighted the importance and implica-tions of regulatory disruptions but also alerted manufacturers and sellers in India to be more prepared than be-fore, to manage them. GST (Goods and Services Tax) implemented from 01 July 2017 is probably the most significant of such regulatory disrup-tions companies are still stabilizing through.Little surprise, therefore, that companies across the globe keep struggling to resolve the wide and wild variety of problems in their supply chain notwithstanding their investments in a myriad of software systems available for supply chain management. What is required, how-ever, is a collaborative and compre-hensive evaluation of information systems and technology to determine whether it is advanced, capable and agile to capture and act upon all the variables that affect the supply chain in this age of disruptions and global uncertainty while ensuring the securi-ty of information and of the organiza-tion against likely business losses and regulatory non-compliances. An information system and technology that is aligned with this basic goal would count as the best supply chain information system and technology
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