Up to this point, supply chains have been linear, with each step dependent on the previous one. An inefficiency at one stage would affect all stages that follow. While this may have been manageable before, today’s challenges — the global pandemic, trade wars, and challenges with international relations — have put an overwhelming strain on the system.
However, advances in digital technology are spurring the supply chain’s reconfiguration. Becoming more sophisticated but less costly, it’s become easier for companies to collect, store, and analyze large amounts of data. Now, every step is connected to a digital core, with the potential to interact with all other points of the network.
The flow of data between previously siloed areas allows for companies to analyze information and act on it in real-time. Not only will information transmit more freely within different areas of the same company, but also between companies and consumers.
The future of the global economy will remain uncertain, and as such it’s key for companies to be agile. But by adopting a more dynamic, interconnected supply chain model, they’ll be able to do just that.
In the first chapter of our eBook, ‘The Future of Retail,’ we explore this topic in further detail, looking at how supply chain challenges have evolved over time, how new technologies can, and have, helped, and how marketers can leverage supply chain data to elevate the customer experience.