2018 Supply Chain Trends by VISEO

Digital transformation, a major trend for the year 2018

All significant players in the market are of course focused on the digital transformation of the supply chain. More specifically, we can see a growing number of initiatives that merge from innovation to the industrialization of solutions. Due to changing of users' behavior, business need to be more responsive in order to meet multiple demands. The ability to model and sharpen purchasing trends, as well as react to sudden changes in demand becomes crucial for all supply chain departments.

Towards a reasoned innovation

We are about to face a massive breakthrough. Innovations must aim for efficiency, by responding to specific needs: utility and practicality are the key words. Innovation must serve the supply and remain measurable to prove its effectiveness. Only companies that have defined robust processes upstream can benefit from this useful innovation. In other words, it is hard to imagine a connected chain of customer order preparation disrupted by a shortage of stock!

Work at the heart of the application architecture

The customers appear to be more and more concerned by the evolution of the modes of projects. With the generalization of SaaS applications or cloud applications, we need to rethink our delivery models. The proximity of the actors within the essential tasks in the project is certainly a line of work that should not be underestimated. In this context, the application architects become essential to reduce implementation delays and supply efficient and sometimes remote service centers.

Disruptive technologies in sight

Even if the technical evolutions remain always important, we are convinced that the useful innovation will be tomorrow at the origin of new concepts! If initiatives begin to emerge around IoT and Blockchain - a secure and decentralized storage and information transmission technology based on a distributed registry on a computer network - the coming months are going to mark a turning point in the case of target uses. We'll come back to dissert about these advances throughout the year.

Gilles Perez, Supply Chain Business Manager VISEO & Nicolas Nesme, Supply Chain Optimization Manager VISEO Asia