Digital Tools for Supply Chain Management

Technology has become an integral part of business these days. It has largely transformed the way businesses are conducted, how interactions with business partners are handled and how easily one can access information. Since organizations nowadays are laying a special emphasis on enhancing the overall structure of the supply chain, the need for digital tools for supply chain management has been increasing apparently.

In this article, we have emphasized on the digital tools that are impacting supply chain management greatly. So come, let’s get started!

Significance of Digital Tools for Supply Chain Management

The importance of digital tools for supply chain management is quite evident from the initiative stakes by companies experimenting with the latest digital technologies, especially during the COVID pandemic. In fact one of the reports by McKinsey states that companies investing in digital tools are likely to gain twice the revenue than their peers who don’t. With the growing relevance of digital tools, taking a comprehensive Digital Supply Chain Management Certification can surely help you accelerate your career. 

Best Digital Tools for Supply Chain Management

With technologies helping companies to ace in an ever increasing digital economy, let’s look at some of the top tools for supply chain management.

Automation: By automating operations and systems, work gets easily aligned with the supply chain. Majority of the companies capture and manage supplier data manually either through a paper-based system or partially electronic system and then not updating the data on a regular basis. By automating the supply chain management, companies can easily gather and process real-time data automatically, resulting in elimination of time taking processes of data processing.

Internet of Things (IoT): The Internet of Things or commonly known as IoT, which is a network of physical systems exchanging data, possesses enormous potential for optimization of supply chain operations especially for data collection from varied sources and real-time performance measurement. Manufacturers can insert loT sensors in all the items circulating in the supply chain for tracing the products.

Advanced Analytics: Since IoT data is growing at a rapid speed, it leads to generation of unstructured or incomplete data. Collecting enormous amounts of data is useless if a company is unable to use it for drawing meaningful inferences and make the most of it. Advanced analytics plays a crucial role in adding meaning to the data collected by making it more useful, offering deeper insights on various processes, products and individuals allowing supply chain managers to make improved decisions for enhancing overall operations and business.

Artificial Intelligence: Since artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies rely heavily on data, they can create a major impact to bring revolution in the existing supply chain processes. They allow organizations to gather data from a variety of sources and conduct analysis for business improvement. With the help of AI, organizations can find patterns, do future predictions, identify and rectify data errors, improve loT insights and enhance material planning, order scheduling and managing logistics.

Blockchain: Blockchain holds an immense potential of being disruptive as it is an essential digital distributed ledger. As soon as the data is entered in the blockchain, the distributed ledger gets locked and tamper resistant. Some of the key functions of supply chain management that can be improved using blockchain are smart contracts, authentication, and traceability.

In order to bring transformation in the supply chain using digital tools, it is essential to have a deep understanding of each and every component of the supply chain that helps companies to enhance their planning, making decisions and responding to various issues. Usage of digital tools can add meaning to the data collected and make it more relevant and useful for improving the overall business operations.

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