INSIGHT Provides Supply Chain Prescriptive Analytics for Big Data Gathered from Complex, Supply Chain Networks

July 19, 2012 - Manassas, VA. –INSIGHT, Inc., a top international provider of supply chain planning solutions for the world's foremost companies, provides supply chain prescriptive analytics and strategies for the Big Data that is collected from global, complex supply chain networks. Companies are using Big Data to better understand massive amounts of data associated with processes and costs related to procurement, manufacturing, distribution, customer service, inventory deployment, marketing impacts and more.

“Big Data's potential goes beyond traditional ‘rear view’ business intelligence, revealing patterns to facilitate making a quantum leap from incremental improvement to predictive business processes and even entirely new business models,” says Dr. Jeff Karrenbauer, president of INSIGHT, Inc. “Customers who use our supply chain planning solutions gather significant amounts of data, from raw material sourcing through final customer delivery. It is what we can help them do with this data that provides enormous potential, such as gaining insights that can be used to fundamentally change operational practices and optimize supply chain strategies that improve profitability.”

Gartner defines Big Data as having three primary characteristics: volume (amount), velocity (speed of creation and utilization), and variety (types and sources of unstructured data, such as social interaction, video, audio -- anything that isn't neatly categorized within a database). Big Data applies to applications across diverse industries, such as retailers who embrace Big Data to combine RFID sensor data, social media data, and GPS coordinates to evaluate location, product selection, and individual profiles in order to deliver geo-specific product promotions to a mobile device. Companies harness its potential and uncover new business opportunities through Big Data analytics.

Big data allows companies to make money from the insights gained. Per a recent McKinsey report, “New academic research suggests that companies using this kind of ‘big data’ and business analytics to guide their decisions are more productive and have higher returns on equity than competitors that do not.”

“With INSIGHT software tools, companies can identify profit-maximized corporate strategies, redesign a world-wide supply chain, establish whether a product line is profitable or a customer segment should be abandoned, determine where inventory should be located and how limited capacity can best be allocated, plan for supply chain disruptions, discover improved shipment consolidation strategies, identify the optimum marketing plan that can actually be implemented, and so on, all to meet customer requirements and gain significant competitive advantage. And you can’t do any of this properly with spreadsheets…you need advanced analytics because of the complexity of the problems and the enormity of the data,” adds Dr. Karrenbauer.

ABOUT INSIGHT, INC.

INSIGHT, Inc. provides optimization-based supply chain analytics and consulting services to meet today's dynamic business challenges. Founded by supply chain and operations research experts in 1978 to apply world-class technology with intelligence and rigor to decision making, INSIGHT solves the complex supply chain strategic, tactical, and financial planning management issues of the world's foremost companies, including many of the Fortune 100 firms, such as ExxonMobil, Nestle, and BASF. Our software and services help firms minimize costs, maximize profits, free up capital, streamline operations, and increase customer service levels. For more information, please visit us on the Web at http://www.insightoutsmart.com.