Prediction Markets Platform - Inkling Incorporated

Predict risk to your supply chain

Understand the probability of inefficiencies and interruptions so you can proactively address them.

Supply chain problems wreak havoc on your performance as an organization. Avoid these pitfalls by predicting risks when there is still plenty of time to do something about them.

Ask questions about every aspect of the health of your supply chain.

Easily involve your business partners and suppliers vs. only relying on expensive data integration projects;
Systematically incorporate the "human" element in to forecasts of demand and risk;
Measure your response to risk by monitoring the market's reaction;
Allow anyone to ask questions to create a "web" of risks people are actively thinking about.

With the health of the supply chain becoming more and more fundamental to the performance of an organization, addressing the risk of inefficiencies or interruption is critical.

Today organizations use a wide array of formal and informal means of mitigating risk. These include data intensive technologies such as supply chain management platforms, product development lifecycle software, and business intelligence and business analytics systems. In addition, operations executives deploy ad hoc mechanisms such as meetings, emails, and phone calls with key personnel and partners across the supply chain.

Yet problems with the supply chain still occur on a regular basis. Minor inventory problems or switches to alternative untested part suppliers may not make the front page of the Wall Street Journal but still affect a company's ability to deliver a product on time or at margin levels that will help the company reach its financial targets. Materials costs, demand forecast errors, breakdowns in machinery or technology, regulations, and natural disasters are all risks a company must predict and preemptively address to keep their supply chain in an optimal state.

From a 2006 survey conducted by Accenture, the global consulting firm:

Accenture found that 73 percent of companies experienced supply chain disruptions in the past five years. Of those, executives at nearly 32 percent of those companies said it took them longer than a month to recover, and 36 percent said it took between one week and one month to recover. The vast majority said the disruption affected profitability and their company's ability to meet customer expectations.

Despite the problems they acknowledged, too few respondents stated that their global operations strategies were developed with specific attention to managing supply chain risk...The net effect is that, when it comes to global operations, too many companies are overly vulnerable, overly confident, and largely unclear about what they are or should be doing to truly mitigate risk.

Inkling Markets can be a first step or valuable augmentation to an existing risk management process by systemizing your ad hoc, "human" information gathering processes and enable more people with valuable inputs to become involved. For example, companies with sole sourced or multiple source partnerships could directly involve not only key personnel throughout their own company but their suppliers and partners as well in predicting product shortages, price increases, faulty components, and shipment delays.

Avoiding even one of these risk factors by being notified ahead of time by the "market" provides a return on investment hundreds of times more than what it takes to deploy a marketplace.

One of your most valuable untapped resources, the institutional wisdom of your people, partners, and suppliers is suddenly available to you using Inkling Markets.

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