Investing in digital technology, processes, and systems drives value to your business
Investing in digital platforms is critical to any supply chain’s future success. The rapid impacts of global events, shrinking labor markets and shipper demand for low-cost shipping makes automation, connection, optimization and end-to-end transparency critical to supply chain ecosystems.
In it’s their article on why digital supply chains are so important Deloitte University Press says:
Beyond these business improvements, there are real financial benefits to digitizing your supply chain. In it’s their 2021 study of 1,601 supply chain executives that are ahead of the curve on supply chain excellence, Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) highlights that corporations that have “Digital Supply Chain Champions” have seen a 7.7% increase in revenue and a 6.8% decrease in cost. That’s a 14.5% improvement in profitability. The ROI value is greater than two2 times on average. In comparison, digital novices achieve a 3.6% increase in revenue and a 3.3% decrease in cost. The payback period for investments into advance supply chain capabilities is 1.8 years.
Supply Chain 247 conducted a recent survey of all of the benefits of supply chain digitization., The top seven business benefits measured by survey respondents were:
More than 45% of respondents expressed satisfaction overall, and 68.7% of companies that implemented digital technologies realized a return on investment in under two 2 years.
Along with technology investment comes changes to business processes. The concept of end-to-end supply chain management is limited by the technology that is available today. Today business processes have a linear flow, in the future a digital supply chain system will act like a hub, acquiring, processing and displaying data to multiple business stakeholders at once, acting like a control tower with everyone accessing the same information simultaneously.
“I am super passionate about digitizing the supply chain because this is what drives value and profitability to organizations. I truly believe that it’s the reason why companies like Amazon are so prolific are basically taking the world by storm because that have one of the most automated supply chains in the world. Their ability to use technology to get to the where they have gotten is the reason why they’re so successful. I also see some these older supply chains that haven’t really adopted new technology, and aren’t really thinking about it, or who have decisions makers who don’t understand the value that is can create. And so for me, this is a monumental opportunity to educate executives on the importance of this transformation.”
— CORRIE BANKS, QUASAR PLATFORM GM
These changes to how we work are going to require a different type of thinking. With faster supply chain data, decisions and reactions will be quicker enabling supply chain managers to head issues off before they happen and the integration between all the parties to the supply chain will reduce the number of phone calls, emails, texts and issues that we’re managing. Transparency across multiple business lines will inform shippers, vendors, and customers of supply chain impacts. This accelerated communication and visibility will enable more collaboration and reduce communication bottlenecks, translating into higher supply chain performance.
At Quasar (QUick Analytics for Shipping And Rail) we believe that end to end visibility for railcars when they are on and offline the rail network is critical to creating supply chain fluidity. The tracking systems in the rail industry today cover the Class I network, but a rail supply chain includes many partners, the shipper, the Class I, perhaps a short line or a port, and the destination customer. We also see that more granular, real-time data enables our customers to identify and troubleshoot issues in the supply chain with customers, transportation partners, or interchange locations. All of these areas are currently difficult to track with the current technology, leading to
At Quasar Platform, our customers are experiencing reductions in administration, reduced cycle times, end-to-end visibility of supply chain performance, and bottlenecks. These benefits are reducing demurrage, improving supply chain fluidity, and enabling our customers to ship more with fewer assets. Within a few months of implementation our customers have more visibility to their inbound pipelines, dwell, and cycle times than ever before. This insight is shifting our customers from transactionally managing their supply chain to managing continuous improvement initiatives and optimizing the supply chain. This shift in focus over the long term will enable our customers to achieve a 4 x return on investment. For more information on our products that can give you a 400% return, click here
