Capgemini: Disruption and Data Shaping Modern Supply Chains
Supply chains face a wide variety of challenges in what has been described as the polycrisis era by experts, from geopolitical conflicts and energy crises to extreme weather and climate challenges.
This has led to fragile supply chains and volatile markets, both of which are struggling to adapt to changes in demand.
In a blog post on Capgemini's website, Jörg Junghanns, Global VP of Supply Chain Orchestration, argues that organisations need intelligent, connected supply chain solutions.
Using data can integrate a business, its supply chain operations network of partners to drive continuous growth and innovation.
An era of 'routine disruption'
Jörg highlights that supply chains are in an era of "routine disruption". Given this vulnerability, companies have been forced to rethink their supply chain practices and the running of their business operations.
Then there's the added pressure of sustainability and ESG regulations, plus ongoing shortages within the labour market and slowdowns within the logistics industry.
"From warehouses to harbours, the worlds of freight and shipping are seeing increased costs and frequent disruption," Jörg says.
"This is only amplified with evolving geopolitical challenges that are directly impacting global logistics.
"As companies continue to work on mitigating the impact of these disruptions, they continue to face significant delays and slowdowns due to their own reliance on legacy technologies, siloed operating models and a lack of access to data."
The challenge of legacy processes and leveraging data
Supply chain complexity and volatility has caused numerous firms to operate in reactive rather than proactive fashion, says Jörg, leaving them vulnerable to disruptions as legacy systems hinder continuous innovation.
Relics from the past, such as legacy, manual technologies and processes consume valuable time and risk leaving organisations behind market trends and the competition.
"These can only delay response times when reacting to sudden supply chain disruption, and in today's volatile world, agility is more important than ever," he adds.
There are also issues surrounding procurement strategies, which are being made more complex as companies faced with the prospect of having to leverage a huge amount of data.
With supply chain resilience requiring a shift in procurement, accessible, centralised data insights are pivotal when determining how to best implement a successful strategy.
Jörg says: "More than ever procurement needs to synchronise category purchasing to avoid conflicting objectives, such as cost vs. reliability vs. resilience."
Other processes, like forecasting, are also hindered by a lack of clear data. Jörg highlights that many firms may lack the required strategic transformation roadmap to upgrade and connect data.
For supply chains, this is a compounded issue, as enterprises must find a way to adapt to local conditions as well as global trends.
To overcome these challenges, Jörg believes companies must how they can build more autonomous, intelligent and data-driven supply chain solutions: "The need for an intelligent and connected supply chain ecosystem model that integrates a business, its supply chain operations and its network of ecosystem partners is vital for future, continuous growth."
Drive resilience in the supply chain
Jörg highlights Capgemini and Kuehne+Nagel's unique business ecosystem partnership that delivers an innovative supply chain orchestration capability that drives resilient, efficient and sustainable supply chain operations.
"This one-stop solution helps to drive new and improved performance levels across your end-to-end supply chain through seamlessly integrating your planning and logistics management to reduce accountability, data, and intelligence mismatches," he concludes.
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