The global supply chain has been constantly evolving. Ever since the last 10 years, the global supply chain has started to rapidly change. In response to factors like climate change, economic disaster, and other external forces, the global supply chain has had to adapt to serve consumers. In an attempt to offer greater and greater conveniences to buyers, many developments have been made and are still being made.
Currently, the global supply chain is experiencing an unprecedented shift unlike anything ever seen. Predicting how the global supply chain will look starts by analyzing our current situation and how things are moving this far.
Many of the shifts in the global supply chain we are seeing revolve around technology, the digital world, and how businesses can leverage those advancements. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the ways the supply chain has been permanently impacted by the circumstances of our day.
AMR Will Dominate The Supply Chain By 2025
AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robots) are already starting to revolutionize the global supply chain. Companies like Amazon have been the first to adopt AMRs in the warehouse and others will soon follow. While we don’t expect AMRs to completely take over human touch points in the supply chain, we can expect to see a greater reliance on AMRs in the picking and packing of parts.
We are still a long way away from a fully automated factory where no humans are allowed. However, the rapid developments in speed and skill that AMRs are showcasing will definitely optimize how products are moved across the supply chain. For buyers, this means lower costs, faster order fulfillment, and greater accuracy. For suppliers, this offers increased profits and fewer expenses.
AMRs aren’t the only technology permanently changing the global supply chain. The world is experiencing a boom in IOT related devices that help make things easier for both the suppliers and buyers. We’ll discuss more about how IOT technology is working its way into the global supply chain later in the article. For now, let’s move on to something equally as important, MONEY!
Real-Time Data Will Optimize Buyers Capital
Every dollar you spend on importing wholesale Chinese products can be optimized by leveraging real-time data from your supplier. Imagine if you had access to the same supply chain information as your supplier. Real-time access to factory AI data, product production alerts, factory video & audio live feeds can help buyers make real-time decisions based on trending information.
When individual supply chain information from various suppliers is aggregated under one platform, buyers can utilize every dollar smarter based on real-time data.
The speed at which information travels between suppliers & buyers is dramatically increasing and has been for over many years. If you think back even 10 years ago, supplier & buyer communication wasn't as fluid as it is now. At the current rate of digital innovation, we can expect supply chain data to become readily available to anyone willing to pay for access.
The On-Demand Marketplace Will Finally Reach The Global Supply Chain
The on-demand marketplace has dominated consumer spending for many years now. Services like, Uber, Amazon, Door Dash Postmates, other on-demand platforms are currently going through a boom in profits. Some companies have even reported double and even triple income gains.
With such a heavy influx of revenue, we can expect the reach of on-demand marketplaces and platforms to expand even further. It’s inevitable that an on-demand business model will come to the global supply chain of the future.
Services are already offering small segments of the population the ability to personalize large orders from suppliers on-demand. For consumers, this means you can expect more products being developed & tailored to local buying patterns. For procurement teams, this means the ability to analyze market research and personalize wholesale products in real-time.
Customer Demands Will Force Regional Manufacturing Hubs To Open
For the past decade, China has dominated the global supply chain on all levels. The entire country has worked toward the goal of expansion and market domination. Known as the factory of the world, China has enjoyed an influx of foreign capital from virtually every government on the planet. As the supply chain constantly evolves we can expect things to change for the future.
In an effort to bring the cost down, procurement teams and industry leaders are now demanding regional manufacturing hubs for their products. Why would you import something from around the world when it can be produced with the same quality and cost in your local region?
Customers, for the most part, are spearheading this objective by demanding homegrown products produced in their own country. This coupled with a decline in production costs led by AI technology has opened up the door for a new picture of what the global supply chain will look like.
We’re already seeing nations like Vietnam and South Korea pick up some of the slack China has dropped. As global economic ruin circulates around every nation on the globe, customers, as well as procurement teams, are demanding solutions. For now, it seems that cutting costs by producing goods and regional manufacturing centers serves to soften the blow just a bit.
IOT Will Help The Buyer Due Diligence Process Go Digital
The Internet of things is a burgeoning technology that has incredible applications across many industries. The global supply chain is only one sector that will be permanently impacted by IOT devices. Take a minute to imagine a factory that is completely integrated with IOT technology. What would that look like?
With the added convenience of IOT technology comes access to data. In a factory lined with IOT devices, how long will it take before suppliers get the ability to access the same information? What if you had the capability of seeing your products in real-time production from anywhere in the world? What if you could log into your application and run a quality assurance test utilizing IoT devices situated inside of your supplier's factory?
These game-changing benefits will permanently alter the way to global supply chain looks. Industry experts speculate that as artificial technology grows, the systems involved in facilitating their operation will need to be linked to the network at all times. This means suppliers can look forward to factories with the ability to function on remote support. For customers, this advancement ensures higher product quality, lowered production times, more competition, and overall options on the market.
Enhanced Communication Between Suppliers & Buyers
When you think of communication, the first thing that comes to your mind is emails, text messages, or perhaps the phone. However, these aren't the only mediums that buyers and suppliers will be able to communicate through in the future.
At this very moment, developers are working on programs and platforms designed to give procurement teams and buyers direct access to supplier databases. This means communication can take place via company intranets, cloud-based networks, automated software, and many more channels.
This enhanced communication could potentially help you never run out of inventory, optimize the flow of goods, eliminate redundancies, allow buyers to make dynamic decisions on the fly in real-time, and much more.
These processes would give buyers and suppliers an opportunity to work with those organizations that are the best fit for them. As an example, enhanced communication can allow vegan product retailers to work with a supplier that only produces vegan products and nothing else. Overall, we can look towards a more optimized process where even the smallest details don’t get overlooked.
Block Chain Will Play A Significant Role In Supply Chain Management
Block chain has the power to completely revolutionize the way data is transmitted throughout the supply chain. Because transactions logged on the block chain are instantaneously transmitted around the world, the speed and accuracy at which data flows could be leveraged. This would help buyers & procurement teams stay in closer contact with suppliers than ever before.
For many years, industry experts have been getting excited over how the block chain will permanently alter the supply chain. Recently, developers and industry experts have become confident in the block chain as an infrastructure that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
With numerous electronic currencies going through ICOs worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the technology has shown promise to be as stable and long-lasting as we hoped for.
Imagine you’re a procurement specialist and you have numerous orders that need to be tracked at the same time. Heading over to the block chain gives you a single source to manage shipments from suppliers all around the world. With that level of convenience and accuracy at your fingertips, it becomes a no brainer to understand why industry experts are so excited about the possibilities. Some companies have already begun testing this out by leveraging the blockchain to provide third-party services to international procurement teams and buyers.
Supply Chain Data Will Be Integrated Into The Company’s Overall Process
As a supplier, you’re constantly generating a wealth of data. Every day, organizations continue searching for new and innovative ways to leverage that data to their benefit. As technology becomes more reliant on digital infrastructure, supply chain data reveals its potential to benefit a company's overall process
Rather than just serving as a tool to be used by the logistics division, making supply chain information accessible to the entire company allows for many possibilities. Companies could leverage supply chain information to analyze market trends for greater marketing accuracy. Additionally, information on speed and efficiency could be used to reveal data and trends human resources would love to analyze.
While the possibilities for how supply chain information can be used is limited at the moment. We can expect many more advancements on this specific topic coming soon.
Optimizing the supply chain is all about reducing complexity. The more simplistic of a process an organization uses the greater profits and customer satisfaction they’ll find. Information has always been a pivotal tool companies have leveraged to achieve growth. Supply chain information is no different and all it takes is creativity and a need for new ways to apply the data to be invented.
Automating Order Management
One of the greatest challenges that suppliers face is simplifying order management into an automated, hands-off process. With large suppliers taking orders from multiple channels, processing and filling those orders has always presented a challenge. Automation tools are becoming more advanced as suppliers find it easy to automate all the moving parts without the help of human input.
Automation technology has proven to be able to process orders in nearly real-time. Additionally, one of the most famous benefits of automated processes is their ability to seek out and find inefficiencies in its own code. This means that the process of automation is a never-ending cycle of greater and greater optimization.
As the world develops, customer expectations are growing greater and greater. In order to keep up with the demand, suppliers must adopt a process to help achieve real-time order processing and live access to the central supplier database. These are all areas that automation has been proven to provide massive advantages.
In addition to an enhanced customer experience, automation provides better transparency over what is being done and when it’s being done. That means buyers and procurement teams can stay in the loop at all times.
The Future of The Global Supply Chain Looks Promising
Based on all the emerging technologies and processes in the works, the future of the global supply chain will look more like a science-fiction episode than anything else. While it’s obvious the direction that suppliers are heading in, many customers are reverting back to a less global, more local philosophy.
As suppliers adapt to the demand, the rate of innovation will only skyrockets. It seems that for now, nothing can stop the furious force of change sweeping the global supply chain into the future. The world is changing so fast that you don’t even want to blink or you might miss it.
