In today’s hyper-connected world, the customer sits at the heart of every business decision. Their demands, preferences, and experiences shape the market landscape, and nowhere is this influence felt more profoundly than in the supply chain.
Historically viewed as a back-end operation, the supply chain is now emerging as a game changer in delivering customer value. To truly harness this potential, businesses must adapt and evolve. So let’s talk about pivotal supply chain strategies that will enable you to cater to modern consumer expectations and at the same time position your business as an industry leader.
Supply chain yesterday, today, and tomorrow
The global supply chain in modern history has been impacted by a few major events:- In the 1980s to 1990s, global free trade gave rise to complex long-distance supply chains. The emergence of integrated supply chains led to the need and creation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms.
- During the 2008 financial crisis, we experienced the first major demand-side shock. There was an overemphasis on cost reduction, regardless of the impact on productivity, supplier collaboration, and sustainability. Response times and inventory increased, while service levels were sacrificed.
- COVID came in 2020, and labor shortages, inflation, and geopolitical instability disrupted supply chains.
- Commercial innovation. Drive business diversification and expansion by launching new platforms, joining marketplaces, and forging mutually beneficial partnerships in the supply chain.
- Sustainable operations. Adopt carbon footprint as a key metric and work with partners that align with your sustainability goals.
- Real-time decision execution. Gain access to real-time data from all points of your supply chain. Decide and implement strategies faster than the competition.
- Human-centric work design. Equip team members with the skills and tools that will allow them to be productive despite disruptions. Automate repetitive tasks so business users can spend more time on strategic and revenue-generating initiatives.
Transforming the supply chain: Success stories
While companies are recently scrambling to future-proof their supply chains, a few frontrunners have adopted digital technologies earlier in the game and are already reaping the benefits. Aeroworx Aeroworx is a 360-degree e-commerce solutions provider covering the Southeast Asia territory. From having multiple Prestashop and a depreciating PHP technology stack, Stratpoint helped them migrate their infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Their new Cloud platform allowed them to make their business applications and processes highly available, scalable, and secure. Aeroworx clients can rest assured that they are getting top-level service when it comes to their e-commerce operations, marketing, warehousing, last-mile delivery, and support. Atlanta Industries Atlanta Industries is the leading supplier and distributor of industrial pipes in the Philippines. As a thriving business, they decided to implement SAP as their enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform. In light of this major investment, Atlanta Industries needed to make sure that its infrastructure was cost-efficient, safe from breaches, and equipped with backup and disaster recovery. The company onboarded Stratpoint to design and build its Cloud infrastructure in AWS. As a result, Atlanta Industries was able to deploy SAP on AWS in only two weeks and kick off implementation activities with no hiccups — on a Cloud platform that suited their needs today but will be able to scale in the future. SM Even the leading mall in the Philippines, SM, encountered challenges in its supply chain at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Determined to serve their customers and at the same time help their merchants continuously generate revenue while the malls are closed to the public, they launched the SM Online app. Stratpoint and SM collaborated to design, implement, and maintain this end-to-end system that receives orders from customers, pushes the orders to the merchants, and manages the picking, packing, and delivery of goods to the shoppers’ doorsteps.Your future with supply chain transformation
By aiming to build a holistic customer-centric supply chain, you can expect the following benefits:- Security and resilience with Hybrid Cloud. Cloud allows you to be agile and flexible enough to innovate while providing a robust and secure environment for your business applications and processes.
- Informed and real-time decision-making with Data. Data gives you a clear and accurate picture of your business at any given time, so you can respond instantaneously and plan your strategy for growth.
- Efficiency and ability to innovate with Artificial Intelligence. With AI, you can let go of tedious and repetitive tasks that take time away from your team to focus on more strategic and revenue-generating endeavors. With a combination of Data and AI, excel in having a highly efficient supply chain with forecasting based on data-driven insights.
