Companies will need to adopt an agile Digital Supply Chain the sooner the better, because digital tools are rapidly transforming process, product and even people, causing organisation a comprehensible feeling of threat.
The Digital Supply Chain is a process in which the product development is conducted digitally, passing through various stages to get its final destination, the consumer. The process develops in a sequential order to bring raw content in a readily available format, to the end-consumer via their personal computer.
Digital supply chains were designed to advertise or distribute goods or services that had previously been supplied in a physical form. A Digital Supply Chain becomes customer-driven, personalised, agile and responsive flow, not only increasing efficiencies but improving the customer experience, revenue growth; saving time, distance, and cost from the supply chain, as well. Technology will enable a digitally-connected supply chain through digital design and modelling tools, like automation, robotics, and 3D printing, to enable end-to-end visibility, and enhance e-commerce capabilities.
The former content must be digitised into a new format (if it is a large amount of content and requires a large digital storage space), it has to be compressed into a format, small enough to be delivered to the end-user. Specific standards, quality control processes and the need to count on the proper license, must always be at the top of all the Digital Supply Chain processes.
A Digital Supply Chain is delivered in a variety of formats – cell phones, SMS, MMS, instant messaging, internet sites, e-mails, banner advertisement, electronic signboards, films, tapes, CD, DVD, hard disks, RSS podcasting, scanners, GPS, PDAs and tagging methods, such as barcodes or RFID. Paper-based supply chain documents are increasingly being replaced by digitalised document management.
For digitalised Supply Chain Management to be successful, it must continuously handle and assess content and the associated metadata, and then handle the publishing of the content to a digital storefront. A good digital management system should also include reporting tools, which can report back on the status of various aspects of the Digital Supply Chain itself, to finally, establish a track record of achieving significant profitability improvements for clients across a range of industries including, manufacturing, transportation, financial services, retail and finance, procurement or marketing.
Metadata entries include business-related information such as pricing and availability; when they are ingested, then, they are hosted and delivered from a content delivery network (CDN) capable of delivering the digitilised information to the end-user. The content will ultimately be displayed on a digital storefront where the consumer can view it (subscription or other method the merchant has elected to make the content available); then, accesses the content to finally purchase it.
The Digital Supply Chain approach in action:
Supply Chain experts must make use of multiple digitalised tools in order to not be left behind.
Focus on the ultimate objective, which is satisfying the customer. The progress will depend on adopting and investing in a unified comprehensive digital strategy and technology approach. The digital supply chain will be little by little embedded into every other function; start taking initiatives one at the time to make this easier for your team, suppliers and customer to adapt to the new digital approach, understanding your customers’ needs, knowing what is possible to supply, deciding what is profitable to promise, making it happen, and finally, delivering what customers want.
So how far have you progressed?
Dave Food