In the past few years, each one of us experienced the effects of supply chain disruptions in the form of empty store shelves or the unavailability of fuel. In the shadow of the pandemic and in light of current geopolitical events, it’s becoming more and more clear for the businesses transporting these goods the importance of having quick, easy access to data across their logistics network to stay agile.
Supply chain digitisation can fortify your business against future disruptions and keep your products flowing across the globe by keeping your logistics systems connected and centralised, giving you the information you need when you need it. Digitisation can also save you money and drive businesses.
What is digitisation?
Supply chain digitisation means transforming analog processes into digital ones by constructing centralised and concentrated master data centres that collect and sort information from across your entire logistics network.
It aggregates sales and customer data, socioeconomic information (i.e. unemployment rates), as well as external data like trends and your competition’s prices.
Digitisation is principally accomplished through the installation of custom or off-the-shelf software, enabling streamlined and upgraded working methods through automation.
The cost of not digitising your systems
The average yearly cost of manual data entry into ERP (enterprise resource planning) and back-end systems is more than US$ 1 million. The typical annual cost of manually entering supplier invoices exceeds US$ 600,000.
This is why 85% of CFOs anticipate that digitising their logistics programs will enhance cash flow and shrink payment collection times.
The benefits of digitising your supply chain
- Automation:
When you automate your routine and repetitive administrative tasks, you diminish your employees’ workload, opening their time to more necessary and urgent work. In short, it allows you and your team to focus on growing your business.
Another advantage to automation is that it drastically reduces mistakes due to human effort.
Plus, with the greater control it allows over invoicing, you get paid faster.
- Avoiding data silos:
Connecting your disparate systems and establishing a single source for your data ensures quick, accurate and effective communication across your organisation.
Why rummage through piles of spreadsheets when you can have the information you need at your fingertips?
- Rapid decision-making:
In supply chains, spur of the moment decisions impact the vitality and future of your business.
Digitisation enables you to quickly and easily analyse large volumes of data, which allows you to make wiser decisions. It gives you a clear view of your financial position, offering you greater visibility of cash flows, permitting improved reporting and forecasting.
Last but not least, it will improve the resilience of your organisation in times of logistical turmoil. You’ll have the data you need to make immediate decisions under pressing conditions.
- Improved customer experience:
With easy access to cohesive and comprehensive data, you’ll better understand your customers, giving you the tools to respond to changes in their behaviour, increasing your ability to keep them satisfied.
How to digitise your supply chain
It could prove challenging to find an out-of-the-box software that perfectly integrates with your current systems. Overhauling current processes is difficult for many companies to handle through their internal IT teams, as their training might not be specific enough. In addition, once the installation is complete, the new system requires attention with fixes and adjustments.
Outsourcing your digitisation to an experienced and reputable IT provider enables your team to concentrate on their daily duties, and offers the peace of mind that should issues arise, they’ll be handled.
Partnering with Sprint Logistics
Digitising your analog processes is a powerful way to protect your businesses against future supply chain disruptions. It gives you greater visibility of your financial position and enables quicker decision-making in the face of tomorrow’s challenges. Most importantly, it gives you time to focus on growing your business.
Sprint Logistics offers a range of services to support your organisation’s digitisation strategy. Our online stock control solution, for example, gives you a customised ordering system to monitor stock in real time, and our BOLT marketing platform puts the control in your hands.
Get in touch and learn how our services could benefit your business.