icix: Mitigating Supply Chain Risk and Ensuring Regulatory Compliance

From tainted mayonnaise to food borne diseases and dangerous children’s products, Matt Smith, the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at icix, a supply chain risk management solution company, has dealt with many a supply chain crises.
“The challenge lies in a company’s ability to effectively and efficiently manage their extended supply chain. Companies need insight and control; they are critical factors in ensuring product safety and quality, and apply across initiatives such as social responsibility and sustainability,” Smith explains.

With over ten years of experience in the industry, Matt is a recognized authority in supply chain risk management and product safety. He believes that any effective supply chain risk management program starts with understanding your business relationships.

“They are the foundation. You have to understand the numerous, and sometimes complex, relationships between the products you buy and sell and the various trading partners who provide them. Once you understand this, you can then connect, communicate and collaborate with the appropriate trading partners on almost any type of information,” says Smith. “icix offers a network and solutions that allow organizations to connect the dots; we provide the transparency necessary for companies to understand these relationships and manage the risks associated with them.” icix recently announced Direct Test, a new cloud application that streamlines the management of product test and regulatory documentation. Direct Test matches purchase orders to existing documentation, and notifies trading partners and testing labs if documentation or certificates are missing. icix connects directly to lab systems to pull in test results, generate certificates and create reports, eliminating the need for manual processing. icix first grabbed industry attention with its cloud-based approach to supply chain risk management. The company’s centralized SaaS solutions and network provide insight into trading partner and product compliance, automate risk management processes and allow documents and data to be shared and tracked in realtime.