Beyond Process Optimization: The Future Of Work In SCM

George is a supply chain manager at a retail firm. Managing a small team of SCM executives, he is responsible for planning, strategy, analysis and management of the retailer’s supply chain including procurement, inventory, logistics, transportation and communications.

The company has still not adopted advanced technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), OCR, etc. So, from data entry to analysis, George and his small team must perform manually.

On a typical workday, George is buried under massive amounts of paperwork and manual tasks, from drawing up and signing contracts to inventory management and team management. He spends at least 40% of his time in repetitive, drudge-intensive manual work. He is unable to extract real-time and actionable insights from the disaggregated business data. This translates into reactive decision-making rather than proactive, data-enabled decisions, strategy and planning.

The firm works with several third-party service providers for transport and logistics. Executives spend a sizeable amount of time every day tracking consignments from suppliers and to customers. Since his firm still uses rudimentary technology including spreadsheets, tracking vendors, product movement, contracts, invoices, etc. is time-consuming and eats up the productive time of the SCM executives.

The severe lack of transparency and visibility makes leakages, resource wastage and delays unavoidable. Together, they make the supply chain rather rigid and make it challenging for his firm to respond to the rapid changes in the market and the business environment. Further, customer service and experiences suffer immensely too.

Let us consider a scenario where the retailer has adopted futuristic technologies into the supply chain processes.

Gina works as the supply chain manager for a retail firm similar to George. This firm, like George’s employer, is a medium-sized one and employs a small SCM team with Gina heading it. However, Gina’s firm has leveraged advanced technology to the fullest. The firm uses Digital Enablement Platform, that drives productivity, efficiency and accuracy in supply chain processes.

A digital enablement platform is software designed to assist people with performing digital tasks and improve their productivity in the digital workplace. It includes integrated conversational AI, natural language processing, intelligent OCR, low code business process management and robotic process automation technologies for assisting and automating end to end business processes across customer experience and employee productivity.

With a digital supply chain and a unified dashboard, Gina’s team can track and monitor everything from shipments to contracts and invoices within seconds. They do not need to engage in data entry since the intelligent document processing coupled with automation solutions take care of consolidating and collating data from across disaggregated systems. Backed by chatbots and digital assistants, the SCM executives are able to focus on high-value tasks such as delivering impeccable customer and vendor experiences, innovation, business expansion, finding new growth opportunities, preempting challenges and so on.

For instance, having reimagined the scope of their work, the SCM executives who looked after logistics previously are now working as customer satisfaction masters. Fitted with digital enablement platform, AI and analytics, they work towards deepening the range of options to fulfill customer orders in a timely and efficient manner. They design ways to ensure personalization and authentic customer experiences while leaving a great impression of the brand at the point of delivery.

Backed by AI & ML, the resource planners on Gina’s team can now proactively and effectively sense and predict failures. This enables them to streamline resource consumption and take preemptive action to prevent failures and wastage. For instance, the executives could re-route within minutes based on real-time updates and triggers from their e-workers, thus, preventing delays. The resource planners creatively plan and continuously innovate to ensure the firm’s practices are sustainable. This further earns the brand goodwill and gives them an edge over the competition.

Gina’s digital work assistant gives her real-time updates, alerts and triggers on product movements, vendors, third-party service providers, inventory, CSAT scores and so on. Further, her digital work assistant equips her with meaningful, actionable, accurate and powerful insights.

Since digital enablement platform has made vendor management, payments and contract monitoring and enforcement hassle-free, Gina does not have to spend days and weeks on paperwork. Further, finalizing deals and contracts is much swifter with minimal back and forth. This further saves time and resources.

Coupled with full visibility into processes, Gina has a head start in planning and strategy. She can forecast and be equipped for the future while having sufficient flexibility to pivot effortlessly. Risk management too is simple and hassle-free for Gina with the help of such futuristic technologies.

Using an ML algorithm, Gina’s demand plans automatically adjust for new product launches, seasonal shifts and changing stocking strategies. So, demand-supply balancing does not eat into her time.

Gina can seamlessly track her team’s performance and give them timely feedback and suggestions to drive greater productivity and efficiency. Gina also has the time to coach teammates and enable them to unlock a sea of opportunities through innovation and creativity.

Overall, Gina’s employer enjoys cost efficiency and greater revenues owing to the deployment of AI-based technologies and intelligent automation.

Even a cursory look at Gina and George’s daily activities will give a clear picture of how technology is opening up great opportunities for SCM executives while enabling value maximization for firms. A 2019 survey found that 61% of executives reported lower costs and 53% of executives reported a direct increase in revenues owing to the introduction of Intelligent Automation into supply chains.

The adoption of advanced technology is a game-changer. However, simply slapping automation or AI onto the existing SCM framework does not lead to gain. Gina’s firm has looked beyond technology adoption and process optimization alone; they have redesigned work to generate greater value and make massive gains. Forward-thinking companies across the globe are doing so.

Blended workforces with human executives and digital enablement platform are the future. Businesses must reimagine work, equip employees with future-ready skills and adopt advanced technologies today to gain an edge in the future. Put together, they can build agile, resilient, flexible and asset-light supply chains to thrive in the age of relentless transformation.