Ready to digitise supply chain? Advantages and challenges of supply chain digitisation

     Hello, readers! I'm Mathews currently pursuing 2nd year MBA at Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore.   Here's my new blog post!

        As the world is moving towards digitalisation process, paper documents and face-to-face interactions are decreasing day by day. With the adoption of industry 4.0, businesses are getting online with help of software and digital services. But how could digitisation impact your SC processes?

        Digitisation is the process through which information are converted into digital format. Digitisation in SC can be achieved by integrating technologies such as Artificial intelligence, workflow automation and internet of things.

 

Advantages of having a digitised SC 

§  Increased operational efficiency:

Digitisation of SC can reasonably increase the speed with which the product/service is delivered and reduce the cost involved in the process with the help of workflow automation. Faster operations could enable business to take strategic decisions quicker and increase operational efficiency. 

§  Complete transparency:

Better visibility of all the activities involved in the SC results in complete end-to-end transparency in SC operations. It enables us to get necessary information from anywhere across the globe resulting in real-time insights and complete control over SC. 

§  Increased performance:

With the help of AI predictions, decision makers are equipped to take informed decisions using predictive analytics. Efficient AI could process the gathered datasets easily and provide beneficial insights whenever required.

Possible challenges 

§  Different companies operate in different ways and making it difficult to build a single clear strategy for digitisation. 

§  Cyber attack is one of the major upcoming challenges that has to be taken care of, by selecting the right team to work on the digitisation process. 

        However, it is no longer a choice for businesses to stay out of a digitised SC if they wish to thrive in this fast growing competitive business environment.