How Technology Can Help You Overcome Supply Chain Challenges?

Lower levels of uncertainty are the key to higher productivity – this dictum is what drives the global supply chain sector. But, the supply chain industry has been on the back foot for the past few years.  The article elaborates on the technological strategies that may help to overcome supply chain challenges

Without a doubt, the COVID-19 pandemic set the stage for unprecedented uncertainties. But the Russia-Ukraine conflict worsened the situation. 

A recent survey by the Institute for Supply Chain Management revealed that approximately 75% of companies in the U.S. reported disruptions in the supply chain due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

But this disruption sparked innovation. Global leaders have started embracing technological solutions to solve their supply chain crisis. Having said that, we’ll discuss how adopting technology can help you overcome supply chain issues. 

Insight into the Most Common Challenges Faced by Manufacturers

The two most common challenges faced by the majority of manufacturers are as follows:

Issues With Suppliers

The Business Continuity Institute of 2020 reveals that 26.9% of organizations will store the same amount of inventory but change suppliers so that goods can be acquired without hassle. Nevertheless, not many know that changing suppliers could result in delays and turbulence within business operations, especially if you don’t have the necessary technologies in place to maintain your supplier relationships.   

A few issues your business can run into if you don’t leverage technology are:

Working With Vendors Who Fail to Meet Your Requirements

If you work with a vendor who delivers stock late or fails to communicate the changes that will affect the delivery, your business operations will suffer in unimaginable ways. By leveraging the right technology, such as supply chain management, it’s easy to identify where your inventory is coming from. As such, you can change sourcing strategies which won’t be possible otherwise. 

Inability to Keep Track of Inventory

Without technology, keeping track of inventory becomes difficult. If that happens, meeting consumer demands wouldn’t be easy. Technologies like IoT devices are useful in this regard. 

Increased Costs Throughout Supply Chains

The two most obvious factors that affect profit margins are rising raw material and storage costs and increased fuel costs. In the absence of modern technology and effective supply chain control, it’s difficult to identify areas of opportunity for cost reduction, such as purchasing materials from a cheap vendor. This small step will affect your profitability greatly. 

How Integrating Technology Will Help You Overcome Supply Chain Challenges?

In order to overcome the aforementioned challenges, a few businesses have adopted modern technology. That’s because technology has made supply chains more efficient, which is why businesses are able to run smoothly while delivering greater value to customers and their partners. 

On that note, here’s how you can overcome a supply chain crisis by leveraging technology:

Improved Ability to React to Change

Many times, business operations come to a halt because vendors face difficulty in sourcing raw materials or transporting them to warehouses. Recent findings cite that supply chain disruptions have increased by 14%. Disruptions in the supply chain have resulted in a whopping 62% loss in finances. 

Implementing supply chain risk management (SCRM) solutions is the only way to prepare your enterprise for changes within your supply chain. The tools, technologies, and strategies private and public entities use to detect, attenuate, and combat supply chain vulnerabilities come under SCRM. 

These solutions allow businesses to identify known risks, document them and prepare a framework to tackle them. You can also leverage existing vendor data and gain end-to-end visibility into the risk of the supply chain. Later, you can use them to scout unforeseen risks and identify known threats. 

Exiger’s supply chain risk management tools deserve mention in this regard. That’s because the company’s solutions like Insight 3PM, supply chain explorer, DDIQ analytics, and entity and personal vetting give businesses visibility into every layer of your supply chain, including the nth level. 

Better Control Over Your Inventory

Thanks to technological advancement, controlling your inventory has become easier than ever. All you need is Inventory management software to gain better control over your inventory. 

By allowing you to obtain visibility across your whole supply network, such software comes in handy in predicting when you’ll need more stock. Besides, you can automate various tasks, like setting up alerts to reach vendors when your inventory hits a certain level. 

Streamlined Collaboration

Lack of clarity and communication among collaborators are two hindrances to successful supply chain management. Today, there are numerous software that allows businesses to centralize their data in one platform so that the entire workforce can access it from anywhere in the world.

When you can identify issues and monitor production performance remotely, you can take quick action and prevent them from escalating. 

Wrapping Up

Truth be told, technology has made ways to overcome supply chain challenges, , which is why manufacturers are able to carry out their day-to-day operations with ease. 

Just like technology evolves over a period of time, so do enterprises. When assessing your technology needs, consider both your short-term and long-term goals. This way, you will be able to choose solutions that will grow with you. 

At the same time, make sure the solutions you opt for support integration with your current tech for seamless communication. No doubt, the pandemic shook supply chain businesses to the core. But you can gain your business’ agility back by adopting technological innovations.