Supply Chain Trends 2023 & How They Can Benefit You

Organizations are slowly starting to realize the importance of improving technology to support supply chain and EDI management. As you continue to navigate the post-2020 landscape, you need to consider emerging technologies like IoT, artificial intelligence, and embedded analytics to help you gain visibility. This will empower you and your teams to achieve critical insight into your orders, increase operational efficiency, and boost customer satisfaction.

As retailers and suppliers continue to overcome the events of the last few years, more and more of them are realizing the importance of having modern supply chain technology a part of their arsenal. In fact, many no longer consider it a luxury–it’s now a necessity if they want to be able to navigate disruption.

According to Gartner, 38% of supply chain professionals indicate their organization is improving technologies to support end-to-end processes, and that their organization has benefited from improved data rationalization and process integration capability. Moreover, 22% of them describe their organization’s use of technology as highly integrated and collaborative. 

While those numbers are encouraging, they’re still not in the majority when it comes to the number of organizations driving business growth through technology. Let’s examine some of the emerging technology trends to keep in mind for 2023, how they can help you achieve supply chain visibility, and how you can apply them today to lower costs and improve productivity:

The Autonomous Supply Chain

The autonomous supply chain is a model designed to standardize, connect, and provide intelligence to your critical network. It does this by leveraging a combination of several disruptive technologies within a digital foundation. In short, it makes all the vital components of your supply chain sharable, uniform, and visible. This enables you to stay proactive when it comes to anticipating disruptive events and creating contingency plans. 

When a supply chain is autonomous, managers and demand planners can reap the benefits because demand forecasting can be that much more accurate with data. For example, it will provide a forecast on the outcome if your supply chain operations suddenly stopped–allowing you to plan for disruption and lessen its impact.

This concept is really the overarching principle for creating a smarter, more responsive network that can provide you with the end-to-end supply chain visibility to develop fast, effective solutions when disruption strikes. Here are some of the technologies and approaches that are helping to guide it:

Big Data & the Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to boost and optimize supply chain management and efficiency by helping you get the visibility and return on investment you wouldn’t be able to achieve otherwise. If you’re new to the concept of IoT, it’s basically a group of internet-connected devices that collect real-time data on goods, shipments, logistics, inventory levels, and warehouse conditions. 

That data is stored and analyzed in the cloud where it is monitored and acted upon if there are changes in the supply chain environment. For example, if sensors detect unfavorable conditions in your storage facility, the facility can be notified to adjust the temperature and make the necessary adjustments. In essence, IoT provides the visibility you need to prevent and/or effectively respond to supply chain disruption. 

By leveraging IoT technologies, you’ll be able to:

• Monitor shipments in real-time
• Analyze supply chain data in real-time
• Enable your physical ecosystem to become self-sensing and drive more optimized process automation

Artificial Intelligence and Embedded Analytics

McKinsey states that AI-enabled supply-chain management has enabled organizations to improve logistics costs by 15%, inventory levels by 35%, and service levels by 65%.

This is made possible due to the recent innovations in data AI that have made many supply chain tasks more efficient and accurate than ever before. Combine that with the accessibility embedded analytics brings to data analysis and business intelligence, and you have the potential to create a truly intelligent supply chain network. 

Deriving that insight related to supply chain performance should be a key goal for your organization–and leveraging analytics and supply chain visibility are key drivers. They can help determine your best performing trading partner or how many purchase orders have been processed within a specific time frame so you can optimize and improve your supply chain operations. 

By making AI & embedded analytics a part of your supply chain, you will:

• Gain end-to-end visibility into supply chain disruptions to resolve issues in real-time
• Make your supply chain more agile to improve speed and scaling while reducing costs
• Maintain and make OTIF consistent with a more resilient supply chain

Digital Business Ecosystem

An organization’s digital ecosystem is a dynamic network of entities (people, businesses and things) interacting with each other through real-time integrated solutions to create and exchange sustainable value. Its function is to exchange information across your trading partner community electronically as close to real-time as possible. This electronic data transfer helps to ensure that B2B transactions are being exchanged seamlessly and all parties have full visibility into supply chain operations for maximum efficiency. 

By realizing the benefits of having trusted partnerships and reliable connectivity, a digital ecosystem will help you scale more efficiently and more importantly, drive maximum ROI across your business. Your interconnected network will enable you to:

• Have a digital foundation to integrate external trading partners to internal business systems
• Leverage a central archive of all digital information
• Access advanced APIs that allow information to be processed anywhere across the ecosystem
• Allow internal and external stakeholders to securely access information

Supply Chain Visibility–Why It Matters

As things become increasingly more competitive, supply chain analytics are becoming that much more important. 

With complete, real-time visibility you’ll be able to have full insight into your open orders, track delivery performance, manage inventory, and identify trends. You’ll also be able to leverage a single version of the truth that will allow you to increase efficiency, identify data discrepancies, and minimize human error.

Visibility will also empower your teams to manage chargebacks, be proactive on issues before they occur, and help maximize customer satisfaction.

It’s safe to say that having end-to-end supply chain visibility can be a game changer for your organization! 

How Syncrofy Can Help

When it comes to achieving resiliency, staying agile, and improving supplier collaboration, Syncrofy can provide that end-to-end supply chain visibility to help get you there. What is Syncrofy?  It’s a multi-enterprise data platform that enables transparency, intelligence, and automation across your existing supply chain networks.

It stands out from other solutions in the marketplace because it provides you with full visibility and valuable insights into your supply chain right out of the box. There’s nothing to configure, no mapping, or specialized data warehouse required. From the get go, you can see what’s going on across your network, what’s working, and where potential problems may occur. This allows you to be proactive, respond to disruption, and stay on the same page with suppliers.

It’s also designed for everyone in your organization. Syncrofy was created specifically with the non-technical user in mind so there’s no need for data scientists or database administrators. You’re able to see your supply chain as it’s happening in a human-readable, easy to understand format. You’ll also get pre-configured tools to make fast, well-informed decisions on your supply chain that you can’t get with any other platform.

Learn more about Syncrofy…

To learn how Syncrofy can help you take back control over your supply chain, click here to watch a recorded demo and to  start your FREE trial today!