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Updated on December 30, 2021 Increased customer demand and booming e-Commerce make business owners introduce warehouse automation. It helps to strengthen labor management and gain more customers satisfaction. Data-driven and automated warehouse processes contribute to an overall supply chain efficiency nowadays due to the cost reduction for the company and meeting the needs of the customers. In accordance with G2.com, business software, and services reviews platform, 2022 will start with 620 000 robots and AGV’s shipped worldwide in comparison with only 40 000 in 2016, and with more than 40% of companies ready to invest in shuttle systems for warehouse automation. “One-day deliver” standard launched by Amazon is no longer an outstanding performance, but a “must-have”. Jeff Sierra, a Senior Coaching Advisor in “Mind Fuel”, said in the “Eight Experts Thoughts About Warehouse Automation”: “The misconception about technology’s role is presented nowadays in many businesses. They think warehouse automation is to do all the processes and all the thinking. One needs to understand the nature of automation and develop well-defined surrounding processes to maximize ROI”.

Since the pandemic, companies have faced manpower limitations, supply chain schedule disruptions, and new regulations on imports and crossing borders. Under such challenging conditions, reducing costs and improving customer service through digital transformation seems to be one of the last options for staying competitive.

In 2021, Third Stage Consulting Group issued an incredibly substantial report on what modern digital transformation strategy is, about top challenges experienced by transformation executives, top trends, and recommendations. They noticed digital transformation was ‘the force driving a business’. In 2022, digital transformation also remains the driver for generating business value. While for some companies it is only at the stage of the idea, some huge market players keep benefiting from it already for years. Just take a look at Amazon. In 2005, Amazon was selling books and performing at a decent operational revenue level. Today, they are bigger than any other retailer in the world. After they implemented a new and pivotal digital e-commerce strategy, the company has gained 1,934% in value and is one of the most successful companies in the world.

In summer 2021, Gartner outlined top supply chain technologies promising to have a positive and valuable impact on the industry and overall performance while also getting people engaged in it. And one of the current trends is the necessity to combine existing solutions to improve ROI and get higher profits.

Staff augmentation is incredibly popular nowadays. The major factor driving companies to outsource their business tasks is cost-saving, improved operational efficiency, better customer assistance, access to new technologies, and flexibility. The statistics show that staffing was a US$497B industry in 2019. Within global temporary staffing, spending for hiring IT talents accounted for US$69B, making it the largest staffing segment in the market (37%). The outsourcing of IT services enables companies to ensure their business continuity and embark faster on the innovation bandwagon. Modern executives also strive to achieve flexible scaling of their software development teams taking into regard current project demands, budget, and cash flow. Therefore, if you want to succeed in a fast-paced IT environment, you must have a powerful workforce and a well-designed strategy tailored to company goals. Reaching out to a trusted software development company is a standard way to obtain great results while saving costs and improving bottom and top-line growth. With the global market size of outsourced application development services estimated at US$85.6 billion, staff augmentation can become the most efficient strategy.

The statistics below demonstrate the quantity of Facebook users globally that has been exponentially growing over the last five years. This year, the number of customers will reach US$1.69 billion, compared to US$1.34 million in 2014. Another example is Google, with its 1.5 billion Gmail users. Due to such a colossal flow of users, Facebook and Google have to keep up with it and perform rapidly, allowing millions of people to access their accounts immediately, and use all of the functions available hassle-free. That’s an example of scalability in action. Most companies necessitating scalable sites will never reach the scale of the modern social media giants or e-commerce industry leaders, but they do need to take into account the possible increase in customers and load. For this purpose, organizations have to be ready to scale their architecture anytime.

In most enterprises, supply chains have evolved over the decades and become more intricate than ever. Each one can potentially produce large amounts of data from various sources available and all types of formats. Companies have to network with various suppliers, partners, and other third parties to properly run supply chain management (SCM). And since there is a lot of data generated across the entire SC, leaders also need to extract intelligence out of it. Today it is possible thanks to affordable computing power available on a massive scale. In other words, combining Big Data and advanced analytics allows for building different instruments to get essential insights and transform information into business intelligence (BI).

In a post-coronavirus-world, С-level executives seek new ways to boost their internal operations to drive the bottom line. Almost 80% of businesses with highly efficient supply chains generate more revenues than the average ones. What’s the key to their success? Forward-thinking companies take advantage of integrated supply chain solutions and digitalization by adopting innovative technologies to upgrade the traditional supply chain management system (SCMS) or even completely replace older technologies. Let’s find out what supply chain integration is and how to disrupt the existing logistics effectively.

To understand what blockchain is, one needs to imagine a virtual ledger capable of registering and verifying a huge number of electronic transactions quickly and safely. Today, this shared ledger technology has greatly expanded the area of application. The first blockchain use cases originate from financial institutions and cryptocurrencies called Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum – just to name a few. The annual global market for blockchain development has increased almost trice since 2017 and is going to reach approximately US$16B in the next three years. Industries from healthcare to food to notary are beginning to adopt blockchain. To dive deeper, let’s go back to the basics of the technology.

The value of effective global supply chain management is increasing each year, as nearly 10-12% of global GDP comprises logistics activities. This percentage shows that people tend to consume more and more. And along with the need to get the deliveries on time, customers seek a seamless and superfast shopping experience. Thus, 30% of businesses worldwide stated that their primary objective is to satisfy the rapidly changing customer requirements, which can result in the company’s success. Indeed, companies with high-performing supply chains get more revenues, than the average logistics performers. With this in mind, leaders have to find out the ways to transform their global supply chain management and to adapt to growing customer mandates. According to a recent report Future State of Digital Supply Chain Transformation, over 75% of companies consider the integration of digital tools as a very important component in achieving effective supply chain management (SCM).

The financial services market has seen radical technology-led changes over the past few years. Many leaders look to their IT departments to improve performance and promote game-changing innovation – while somehow reducing costs and, at the same time,  continuing to use legacy systems. “To succeed in this rapidly changing landscape, IT executives will need to agree with the rest of the management team on the posture they wish to adopt. Will they try to be industry leaders, fast followers, or will they just react? Whichever direction they choose, they will need to devise a clear strategy to move forward.” FS Tech 2020 and Beyond: Embracing disruption Meantime, fintech startups are disrupting the established markets, leading with user-centric solutions developed from scratch and unencumbered by legacy platforms. Customers have certain expectations and are now necessitating better services, seamless experiences regardless of channel, and more value for their money. Also, regulators demand more from the industry and have started to adopt new technologies that will transform their ability to gather and analyze data. And the pace of drastic change is not even at the peak. There is no doubt that technology is affecting financial services in multiple ways. The PWC report suggests ten key influencers that IT executives need to address while strategic planning for 2020 and beyond. Each of these drivers is likely to change financial services companies and their management teams in far-reaching ways. And while each can have a disproportionately strong effect on a given country, customer set, or industry sector, they all present opportunities for the thinking executive to go ahead. Knowing a robotics era is coming, for example, you have a choice: to harness the innovation, or to see others benefit from a global shift. The section below sets up challenges around these ten influencers: to know them, get ready for them, and see how to employ them to get a competitive advantage.

Supply chain management (SCM) is a wide range of processes required to plan, manage, and execute a product’s flow from raw materials to the creation of a final product and its distribution in the most cost-effective way. SCM incorporates a set of actions needed to streamline the flow of goods and services, information, and costs by covering these stages: planning, sourcing, production, inventory management, and logistics. Companies use both business supply chain strategy and management software to create a competitive advantage. Supply chain management is a complex undertaking where each participant has to put forth much effort—starting with suppliers to manufacturers and beyond—for it to run seamlessly. Because of this, powerful SCM also requires change management, cooperation, and risk management to create alignment and interaction between all the partners. Many challenges plague the supply chain industry. A few supply chain data sources reveal that many professionals are having problems with improving their operational visibility (21.1%) and meeting the changing customer demands (19.7%). This is in addition to being constrained by cost increases and the increasingly competitive business landscape. Now might be the time for businesses to start rolling out data-driven processes to improve their overall supply chain.

In 2017, the logistics industry reached $1,171B. This is as much as today’s Indonesia’s and twice as much as Belgium’s GDPs. Additionally, logistics is expected to grow to $1,374B by 2023. Despite intensive development, transportation and logistics (T&L) continue to have low digitization. Only 28% of companies have rated themselves as “advanced” in this area. Other domains demonstrate considerably higher ratings. For instance, 41% of automotive and 45% of electronics companies brag about their “digital culture.” This whitepaper will illustrate why T&L needs to be digitized, the behind-the-scenes challenges, and how software can impact the efficiency of T&L processes.

Against the background of ubiquitous automation, some warehouse domains remain only slightly automated. This leads to errors and inefficiencies in warehouse management. This whitepaper focuses on realms that can be enhanced with image recognition. So far, automated systems can distinguish a pattern of loaded packages and send alerts about potential problems. If you’d like to get rid of wrong packages in your production line, or in the stacked pallets, find less-than-fully loaded pallets, or conduct automatic inventory, this whitepaper is for you. At Innovecs, we’ve already made strides in solving such issues and are ready to share our experiences. Read on how