SUPPLY CHAIN
IS KEY
UPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Digital transformation and increasingly complex value chains will see the supply chain management solutions of the future being built on trust
WRITTEN BY : SEAN ASHCROFT
Digitalisation of the supply chain was already well underway before COVID-19 struck , but the pandemic – and its attendant disruptions – has rapidly accelerated the process .
It did so because crisis-hit organisations realised that building resilience and agility into their supply chain was a matter of urgency ; indeed , war in Ukraine has only served to stoke the coals of this fact .
Supply Chain Management ( SCM ) solutions are all about data-driven visibility , which allows businesses to predict disruption , and to plan around it .
Yet there ’ s a thorny issue at the heart of the digital transformation of supply : trust .
To be optimally effective , SCM software requires that data is shared between vendors in a value chain – sensitive data , concerning inventory levels , demand forecasts , customer orders and delivery information – and data scandals in recent years have made firms wary .
Trust ‘ will be issue ’ on data sharing – UST ’ s Colehower Jonathan Colehower , global supply chain strategy practice lead at digital transformation specialist UST , says modern supply chains are more network-based than in pre-pandemic times , and that it ’ s this change that goes to the heart of the trust issue .
He says : “ In my opinion , traditional supply chains will become more like private trading networks . In traditional supply chains , suppliers typically have visibility one layer up and one layer down .”
At UST , Colehower says they are fashioning “ many-to-many trading networks that are permission-based ”. supplychaindigital . com 43