The pandemic wreaked havoc across global supply chains in 2020, and things only got worse in ‘21—unprecedented material and labor shortages, production shutdowns, the closings of major container ports in China, the colossal Suez Canal crash and blockage, spiking prices, spiraling freight costs and wild swings in consumer behavior.
As we move deeper into 2022, CXOs need to prepare themselves for the uncertainty and disruption that is still to come. The C-Suite must realize that businesses face huge challenges as they struggle to infuse greater resiliency, adaptability, and visibility into their supply chains. Only the successful will survive.
On the consumer front, fear about how supply chain disruptions might negatively impact their lives is mounting; Yet, still basking in the halo of the Amazon effect, consumers abhor delays more than ever before and hold brands accountable for any unpleasant or unfulfilling experience. According to a recent survey conducted by Oracle of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers, 82% are scared that supply chain issues will ruin their life plans, 92% believe more disruptions are coming, and 80% say delays and shortages could cause them to cut ties with favorite brands. Suffice it to say, consumers remain in complete control and as demanding and unforgiving as ever.
The good news is that digital transformation among manufacturers, retailers, and distributors has been underway for nearly a decade now. Innovators have begun to embrace next-generation systems, and the rest of the field is starting to follow. Moreover, today’s acute strain and widespread pain across global supply chains is driving a digital-first mindset and aggressive investment in supply chain modernization efforts.
Supply chain leaders have reached a point in their transformation journeys where they consider themselves “digital first” in the use of technology to enable more seamless customer experiences and more automated and insightful decisions throughout operations.
In line with this, the transition of supply chain management applications from on-premise to SaaS, which has been underway for nearly a decade now, has hit a sharp inflection point and CXOs should prepare themselves to deal with the potentially stratospheric growth of those platforms over the next five years.
According to a recent McKinsey survey, 90% of supply chain executives plan to implement a new SaaS solution in the next five years, and 23% have already done so. Gartner anticipates that 90% of spending on supply chain execution systems will be for cloud supply chain solutions […] and spending on cloud-based supply chain management software will surpass $11 billion by 2023.
To ensure survival and growth amidst constant supply chain chaos and increasing consumer entitlement, the C-suite must champion cutting-edge technologies availed through the cloud such as advanced analytics, AI, machine learning, digital twins, IoT, edge computing, and blockchain, among others. The rapid rate of innovation availed by cloud technologies is at an all-time high and shows no sign of slowing. And the businesses so wise as to invest in cloud innovation will discover ever-new ways of growing.
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