White Paper: Shrinking The Supply Chain Expands The Return: The ROI Of RFID In The Supply Chain

By Thomas Pisello, author of IT Value Chain Management

Many organizations that produce, distribute, handle or sell various goods are researching what RFID can do to improve operating efficiency, reduce business risk and drive additional revenue opportunities. According to Alinean Research, these early RFID projects could cut supply chain costs by 3-5% and achieve a 2-7% increase in revenue thanks to the better visibility and accuracy that RFID provides.

These benefits are good news, as with the current focus on bottom-line results, every project is under intense scrutiny to generate tangible business value. On average, over 90% of projects require a formal business case justification in order to gain approval2. For an organization considering RFID projects that might require significant up-front investment, how can these general early adopter guidelines and case studies be used to ensure that individual programs will generate positive business benefits and a tangible ROI? The bottom-line: Does the value of RFID tagging exceed implementation cost?

This white paper was developed by Alinean, the IT value experts to explore the business case for RFID, quantifying the potential value of RFID for various industries and business processes. The results are derived from simulations using Alinean's RFID ROI tools, specific organization case studies and third party research. The purpose of this paper is to review various business benefits of implementing RFID, and discuss various typical ROI results, providing a guide to the value typical organizations can expect from streamlining supply chains using RFID implementations. With over a decade of researching and developing technology return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO), the Alinean team are the experts leading solution providers, consultancies and CIOs turn to for IT value advice, research and assessment / benchmarking tools.