SYNOPSlS: Your Supply Chain Roadmap IDC’s Predictions for 2022 and Beyond

Presenters:
Dr Chris Holmes, Managing Director, IDC Insights Asia Pacific
Stephanie Krishnan, Associate Vice President, IDC Manufacturing & Energy Insights Asia/Pacific
Sampath Kumar Venkataswamy, Senior Research Manager, IDC Manufacturing Insights

IDC’s Predictions for 2022 and Beyond webinar threw a lens on the four key overarching themes that address critical hotspots for today’s supply chains: resiliency, worker productivity, forecasting, and last mile. The event highlighted that future supply chains are essential for ensuring business continuity, growth, and future competitiveness. The predictions by IDC Manufacturing Insights focus on three prominent trends. First, the predictions recognize the need for productivity and resilience in the short term. In the mid-term, the predictions trend around sustainability, visibility, and connectivity as organizations build capabilities to achieve long-term competitive advantage and new business models. Finally, the long-term outlook points to collaboration, innovation, supply chain orchestration, and circular economy business models.

For the first prediction, Dr. Chris Holmes noted that as organizations seek the benefits of resiliency, the supply chain has been elevated to board-level discussions as constraints with supply and variability of demand have left companies without products to sell. Those who have not heeded earlier calls to invest in infrastructure that supports supply chain agility, visibility, and flexibility find that they have struggled to cope with recent disruptions. As a result, companies are now seizing the opportunity to transform their supply chain to make it genuinely resilient, integrating both existing and new supply chain systems to combine all relevant data and insights for optimal resiliency.

Next, the focus shifts to workers and the need for automation and productivity. In addition to lockdowns and absenteeism caused by COVID-19, employers are dealing with the great resignation – a phenomenon that describes record numbers of people leaving their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. IDC recently found that 28% of organizations worldwide have already identified that talent and talent skills gaps will significantly affect digital transformation efforts over the next 2 years. Stephanie Krishnan noted that through increased automation use, Asia/Pacific supply chains could deal with restricted access to low-cost migrant workforces and gave examples of how turning to robotics for packaging has reduced the impact of labor bottlenecks.

Focusing next on forecasting and its impact on the shop floor, Sampath Kumar Venkataswamy took participants away from reliance on historical forecasts to look at the benefits provided by the use of Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), especially when faced with anomalies or disruptions like those experienced in recent years. By implementing capabilities that rely on demand sensing and provide the agility to respond to those signals, organizations can put forecasts together that will better reflect business strategy and needs and increase forecast accuracy.

To wrap up, the final prediction focused on an area that has impacted many of us – the last mile. Stephanie highlighted how organizations in the region are experimenting in the last mile to increase efficiencies, such as micro-distribution centers, quick commerce, and in-transit rerouting. In the recent IDC Asia/Pacific Future of Operations survey, 49% of Asia/Pacific organizations indicated that first-to-last mile logistics integration across the supply chain is a top priority in the next 12‒24 months, ahead of their European and North American counterparts. Speed, accuracy, and flexibility will require the integration of multiple systems seamlessly to increase information and inventory velocity to meet customer demands.

The session ended with twenty minutes of lively questions that delved into many topics, including:

-sustainability and ESG and the impact on supply chains
-current trends and focus areas for technology adoption
-deep dives into emerging technologies and the role they will play
-supply chain integration with manufacturing operations
-the focus for skills development for supply chains and where current areas of shortage are
-the role of big data and small in facilitating information, financial, and product flows

To watch the full webinar, go to: https://bit.ly/FutureSupplyChainIDC2022