In today's complex, global marketplace, organizations face increasing pressure to maintain profitable growth, while the capability for internal research and development is reduced. Companies continue to search for innovation and growth through mergers & acquisitions (M&A) and outsourcing. Partnerships become increasingly strategic as certain services are outsourced, allowing organization to focus on its core competencies.  These partnerships become a complex web of dynamic supply and demand networks, or supply chains.

Despite advances in technology and intra-company communication, each partner, in these deep supply chain webs, has its own method of managing quality events, from (literal) paper processes to automated enterprise quality management systems. There is no single system of record, communication is point-to-point instead of a hub and spoke communication model, and electronic communication is relegated to fax and scanned PDFs. Companies are aware of the problem, but they are unsure where to start. Automated communication around quality issues within the supply chain remains an untapped opportunity.