Page 22 - Logistics News - May June 2022

S UP P LY C H A IN

Transforming the supply chain

with data analytics and intelligence

By Clayton Nicholas, Founder and CEO of Vibronyx

Data may not be considered a revolutionary concept, but today it is considered a fundamental
component of digital transformation.

ata is the key to achieving breakthroughs Digital reinvention is today’s necessity
in supply chain management that the While transformation is an ambitious undertaking,
D industry once considered impossible. Now, the benefits go well beyond improving supply chain
with the advent of the metaverse, the lines between performance and profitability. A late 2020 Gartner
the digital and physical worlds continue to blur. To survey showed that nearly 70 percent of companies
compose a supply chain agile enough and prepared surveyed accelerated their digital road maps during
for such a future world, organisations must invest the pandemic. That being said, digital reinvention in
in effective data analytics to mine data for valuable, the supply chain is now a necessity.
proactive insights and accelerate intelligent decision-
making. Myriad use cases for supply chain analytics
exist – and the number will only continue to grow as
As we come upon the two-year mark since the forward-thinking leaders embrace the opportunity
onset of the pandemic, organisations are keen to for human and machine collaboration. Consistently
digitally transform and adopt intelligent supply ranked as one of the top five corporate supply
chain management. On top of pandemic disruptions, chains, Schneider Electric leverages a supply chain
businesses across sectors are also contending with data platform within its control tower to integrate
growing labour shortages, supply shortages and internal data with external data from partner
rising costs. As disruption has become an everyday ecosystems in real time. By unlocking newfound
occurrence to supply chains, chief supply chain value in analytics, Schneider Electric achieves full
officers (CSCOs) are under growing pressure to visibility of its end-to-end supply chain. Ultimately,
capture real-time data, analyse it and respond this allows the company to boost agility, effectively
quickly to mitigate risk. Supply chains must adapt for manage supplier relations, extend visibility and
continued agility, resilience and transparency. support intelligent decision-making.

In its 2021 Future of Supply Chain Survey, The intelligent building blocks
Gartner discovered that 43 percent of enterprises Data-based decisions require a fundamental change
will continue to digitalise and integrate innovative
in how supply chain organisations think about data.
L O GI S T I CS NEWS technology into enterprise-wide systems. This means Implementing data analytics is not solely a matter
that in the coming year, the ability to augment
of tacking on new technologies, but rather a series
operations and decision-making with data analytics
of digital initiatives to capture the full value of data
will prove to be a transformative and highly favoured
analytics and intelligence. To make this shift, start by
capability.
looking at the following:

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