Disruptive Forces On Supply Chain

Over the last 20 years there have been many disruptive forces on the supply chain, each one of these forces, whether technical or operational in nature, have made their mark on the supply chain indifferent manners to bring transformation to the supply chain. While disruption is not new to the supply chain the velocity has increases to a level of discontinuous disruption with cycles of continuous disruption driven by combinations of technologies, operational practices to incorporate the the technologies and the growth of collaboration and point solution providers in the supply chain. The disruption comes from putting together new solutions by combining these factors in new and creative ways to meet the demands. The greatest disrupting factor though is the the technology and the end consumer use of new technologies and collaborative opportunities.




The end consumer is eventually the customer that purchases the finished goods and the disruption starts and end there. The end consumer has embraced the the technology across generations now and there is an increased demand from younger generations that have grown up with and are comfortable with the technologies. I think that the growing acceptance and comfort in the technology from consumers is probably the greatest disruption force on the supply chain. This is, I believe, ground zero, for the disruption and the supply chain is driven by these disrupting forces of the consumer that now has the ability to build their own capabilities. Consumers now can develop their own shopping and and purchasing capabilities utilizing mobile technologies and network improvements that were not imaginable fifteen years ago and as the comfort and acceptance of technology has grown the disruption from the consumer demands has grown.




The supply chain is buffeted by these demands and is continuously looking to streamline and optimize the the disruption to bring transformation of the supply chain to support the demands. Technology has played a huge role in this supply chain transformation and the signs and direction forecast only increased disruption through technology. These demands have forced the supply chain to build a more collaborative network of their partners in order to quickly and efficiently sense and respond to the disruptive forces. Probably the greatest tool incorporated by the supply chain in their drive to react to these disruptive forces are data and analytics tools.




I believe that in the disruptive transformation of the supply chain the silver bullet factor, if you will, is data and the tools to analyze the data to allow the supply chain to effectively sense and respond to these forces. The knowledge brought about through the analysis of data will provide the supply chain with tools to identify trends and react more quickly than before and the objective for the supply chain in this current environment is reaction time. This is all new ground being covered and there are no off the shelf solution in the analytics of the data and then just to make things a little more difficult, the same data will mean different things to different partners within the supply chain. This requires the supply chain network to create a highly collaborative network to sense and respond to the same demands in the ways that make the most sense for each partner. The collaborative network will allow the supply chain to quickly sense and respond to the demands.