The modern business world is incredibly fast-paced, complex, and highly globalized. This situation, now more than ever, puts pressure on supply chains to deliver stellar performance and be able to move the goods to the consumers’ doors with as little delay and invested resources as possible.
And truly, the recent survey says that by the end of the year, as much as 50% of the global eCommerce companies will start investing in new real-time supply chains kicking the entire industry into high gear.
These new investments will, of course, send ripples across the global market and cause numerous disruptive supply chain developments. Let us take a look then at some of the most important mentions and see what your company can do to use them to its advantage.
Artificial Intelligence Takes Over the Logistics
As we mentioned in the introduction the present day, supply chains are incredibly complex and include countless different variables. In such a situation, performing efficient logistic management would be near impossible without the assistance of dedicated software tools.
However, while these packages become an industry standard, the spearhead of the logistic industry is gradually being taken over by the advanced AI capable of performing complex analytics, calculating best routes with great efficiency, and having great freedom in making decisions. If you want your business to push the envelope, this is the path to take.
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Grooming a New Kind of Workforce
The United States is currently experiencing a labor shortage that is affecting all industries in existence, logistics included. This development couldn’t come in a worse time for the industry since it overlaps with the gradual labor generation shifts. It will take some time until supply chains are able to bounce back to work in full force.
However, the industry will use this reset to rethink the hiring process and start putting a greater focus on onboarding and training. This new workforce will have to possess a greater level of expertise in skills like data analytics but also expect much better pay than the previous generations.
New Solutions for Broken Cash Flow
Much like all other sectors in the world, supply chains and logistics are also deeply rooted in seamless cash flow – even the discrepancies in one part of the globe can cause devastating bottlenecks thousands of miles away. People running this global supply network are still trying to figure this problem out but, at the moment we are seeing two predominant solutions.
The first one comes in the form of short-term trade finance loans designed for patching up smaller financial gaps. Alternatively, companies are showing more flexibility in offering their clients incentives for early payments and even introducing subscriptions.
Optimized Forecasting
If there is one positive thing we can say about the COVID-19 is that the global pandemic very clearly outlined all of the weaknesses of the existing supply chain systems all around the globe.
Namely, we had a good opportunity to see unpredicted events of this scale can completely derail the industry and leave behind overstocked warehouses, dissatisfied customers, and lost revenue. But, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? In this case, yes.
The modern business world will finally ditch the forecasts based on a hunch, and invest resources into making accurate, relevant, and data-driven assumptions.
Greater use of IoT and AR
In one of the previous sections, we have mentioned that the present-day business world is making huge steps in the direction of intelligent supply chain management. This, however, is not the only way in which the latest tech trends are reshaping how we perform logistics.
The second example can be found in emerging technologies like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and the Internet of Things that all create a very immersive experience and allow supply chain managers to get much greater control in activities like warehouse management, loading, shipping, and route planning, all without having to leave the office.
High Level of Customer-Centricity
In some previous times, the companies were not that concerned with the sensibilities of their consumers beyond considerations about the quality of the delivered product or service.
The modern world couldn’t be more different and companies, these days, are paying much greater attention to issues like sustainability, environmental topics, fair trade, and green policies that are considered very relevant to the general population.
In 2023, this customer-centric perspective should sweep away the supply chains as well. As a result, the companies will start putting the issues above to the top of their considerations.
Final Thoughts
We hope these few mentions give you a general idea about the direction the supply chains will keep moving in 2023 and what your company can get from this process if it jumps on the bandwagon in time.
Much like any other industry in the world, logistics took a heavy blow with the outbreak of COVID-19. However, these unfortunate circumstances allowed us to take a good look at what we did wrong and make supply chains more streamlined and efficient than ever.
So, use this opportunity to overhaul the supply chain of your company or you will run in danger of being left behind.
Written by Mike Johnston