Omni Market Supply Chain

The omni market renewal is a massive undertaking that will span years and will in all reality probably not end and the extended supply chain plays a major role in the success of the renewal. As a result of the market renewal, the extended supply chain is also experiencing and in turn also being driven by the same disruption renewal in the retail marketplace. The extended supply chain began to recognize and take actions much earlier in the cycle than the key retailers because to a very large extend the extended supply chain and partners experienced a major market disruption a result of the great recession and this disruption forced the supply chain partners to address extreme pressure on costs and capabilities with similar impact as the disruption currently being experienced in the retail marketplace.




I think the leaders in retail disruption and renewal have long recognized the importance of their extended supply chain in supporting demands and they have shown their understanding through their focus on working with their supply chain to incorporate new capabilities. As example, the key retail players in this current disruption and renewal cycle, Amazon and Walmart, have both been early adopters of supply chain services and capabilities and have shown their recognition of the potential of a robust collaborative extended supply chain. Their demonstration of this understanding has come across as a focus on the automation that can improve throughput and costs and most importantly efficiencies. Early on efficiencies in supply chain execution were a key focus and these were critical to support the retail model in a global supply chain.




Now we have entered into a time where the retail marketplace is highly dependant on their supply chain to support the consumer selection and delivery demands and the supply chain has stepped up in many imaginative ways to address these challenges. This extended supply chain is able to now only support these demands but also develop and implement new solutions to simplify the process and they are able to do all of this because of their historical drive to manage costs, and improve services. The extended supply chain partners may be uniquely positioned to provide guidance and support to their retail partners to help guide through the challenges and demands of changing a culture while flying at 800 miles an hour.




The solution and means to meeting the marketplace disruption are rooted in collaboration and partnerships. This requires an extended focus on changing the culture of both organizations and the market. The market culture really starts with the consumer and consumers now are driving the disruption through technology tools and services available to them and most importantly these tools and services are continuously changing and improving as well to provide new capabilities and combinations to consumers. We have seen that consumers can be impatient in their demands and require a continuous interaction and reactions from all retail marketplace partners to sense and respond to the demands.