Reinventing Supply Chains 2030

Supply chains are getting battered by geopolitical, trade and energy crises, extreme weather, price hikes, inflation, and infrastructure downtimes (think the bridge in Baltimore). These disruptions are severely impacting labour, transport and raw material costs, among others. 

A significant wave of ESG requirements is forcing companies to behave more sustainably and transparently. Regulatory requirements are growing in scope and complexity, with increasingly smaller companies and their entire supply chains, required to comply or face serious financial penalties, exclusion from public contracts and reputational damage.

Regulatory demands to track and trace materials and goods across value chains, as well the need for resilience and efficiency, is spurring competition to join fully-integrated ecosystems and also between them. Ecosystems help stakeholders – from raw material producers to customers – collaborate in a seamless, transparent and efficient way to share data, react faster to problems and improve customer experiences.

More and more, customers demand sustainable, climate-neutral products and services. They want transparency and ethical behaviour, as well as convenience, fast delivery and value for money. Supply chain models are evolving to be more service-oriented, sustainable and circular to meet these demands.

Massive global talent shortages – with millions of jobs going unfilled – are disrupting daily operations, and leading to bottlenecks and delays. At the same time, technological advances are changing the nature of jobs and the skills required. Worker shortages undermine productivity and efficiency, and impede a company’s ability to grow and compete.

Technologies are dramatically changing how supply chains operate. This disruptive threat also represents a solution to other disruptions as technologies enhance data visibility, automate manual work, processes and decision-making, and improve communication and collaboration across entire value chains.

Digital twins, or interactive virtual replicas of physical objects, systems and processes, monitor supply chains and logistics, and can optimise entire supply chain networks. 56% of companies say digital twin solutions will have an immediate impact on their supply chains; 37% of companies that have fully adapted their supply chains technologically use digital twins in supply chain planning. 

AI identifies patterns in disconnected data across complex global supply chains to make decisions using real-time data and simulate future outcomes. Champions are using AI in supply chain planning and inventory optimisation, logistics planning and execution, order management, and risk identification/ simulation to foresee and react quickly to disruption. 80% of companies think AI will have a positive long-term impact on their supply chains.

Harnessing the power of AI and machine learning, visualised data and collaboration technologies, decision intelligence systems provide insights and recommendations to improve, and potentially automate, decision-making. This technology is essential to efficiently participating in ecosystems, identifying trade-offs between costs and sustainability goals, and simulating how different supply chain configurations might impact carbon emissions.

To improve efficiency – and combat worker shortages – companies are automating repetitive and physically-demanding activities associated with shopfloors, warehousing and delivery. Automating processes reduces human intervention and manual errors, increases efficiency and streamlines processes, while freeing up staff for more complex tasks.