Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations are considering digital transformation as the key to ensuring supply chain resilience. Evolutions in technologies have enabled the creation of digital supply networks that can be used by companies to strengthen their procurement strategy. With new and emerging digital solutions involving artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics, companies now can harness their data to optimize inventory more effectively than ever before.
Even as the pandemic is receding, supply chain disruptions continue to be commonplace, and chief supply chain officers are under growing pressure to use and analyze real-time data to mitigate risk. According to a recent Forbes article, “43% of enterprises will continue to digitalize and integrate innovative technology into enterprise-wide systems. This means that in the coming year, the ability to augment operations and decision-making with data analytics will continue to be a transformative and highly favored capability.”
Forbes reports that implementing new data analytics capabilities is best considered as a series of digital initiatives, for which there are many options. For instance, the introduction of the metaverse is one solution that will greatly increase a company’s ability to deliver predictive insights across supply chain networks, enabling it to “reduce development times and risk, achieve higher operational efficiency, and improve resilience.”
Ensuring Continuity Throughout Disruptions
Companies are using analytics and AI to mitigate risk and ensure continuity throughout any global supply chain disruptions. These powerful tools help businesses automate tasks in a way they never could before, while gaining deeper insights for better, faster decision-making, according to Supply Chain magazine.
Supply Chain reports that digital twin technology is currently considered one of the most innovative uses of AI and data analytics in supply chains. A digital twin provides a virtual supply chain replica that enables scenario modeling to simulate the impact of disruptions, like market changes and natural disasters, allowing companies to determine how resilient their supply chain is. AI modeling also proactively identifies supply risk, such as a supplier’s inability to source needed materials, before it can become a problem.
Deloitte experts agree that “with improvements in data, analytics, computing power, and visualization, digital procurement has better evidence-based options for decision-making, which can improve both the value and accuracy of strategic decisions and the speed of execution.”
New disruptive digital supply chain technologies are altering the procurement function for the better. Deloitte recommends that procurement leaders invest in both:
- Maturing digital solutions that are currently transforming procurement with minimal investment, such as cognitive computing/artificial intelligence, predictive/advanced analytics, intelligent content extraction, visualization, and crowdsourcing
- Emerging digital solutions that could impact procurement in the future, such as block chain, sensors/wearables, cyber tracking, and virtual reality/spatial analytics
In the face of continuing disruption, companies must adapt to ensure supply chain resilience. Digital transformation is an incremental, multi-year journey. If your company has not yet created a digital procurement strategy and started this process, now is the time to consider the many AI and data analytics options available on the path to intelligent supply chain management.