Back in the last century,Accenturewould hold an annual event called the “Global Consulting Seminar.” It brought together leadership from around the world, some 7,000 people at the time. The session, conducted on a grand scale, would take over Epcot in Orlando.
At a session held in 1998, we had two speakers that left a lasting impression: Henry Kissinger and Don Tapscott, author of “The Digital Economy.” Kissinger said that he believed that his generation would be the last that got its education entirely from printed books. Tapscott spoke about the rise of the digital economy in an era of networked intelligence.
While January 1, 1983, is generally considered the birthday of the internet with the development of Transfer Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol (TCP/IP) that gave disparate networks a common way to communicate with each other, it was piggybacking on a number of seminal inventions and developments dating back almost 20 years. However, in the 1990s, general commercial acceptance and use was limited. At that point, we still relied on FAX machines, landlines, and paper documents.
The digital supply chain has evolved from the nascent steps taken in the 1960s and 1970s with embryonic TMS systems into what we have today, which are robust and more comprehensive technology solutions that have helped speed up the process of moving freight and accurately and timely capturing the data related with large volumes
of transactions.
Kevin Mahoney, managing director, supply chain at Deloitte, and colleague Ryan Geiger, have devoted thought leadership time to coping with the rapidity of change in supply chain, particularly in the retail sector. While change is constant, the speed of change has been ratcheting upward much more quickly than ever before, especially with the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI).
They recently posted a series of key issues that require identifying and pose questions that can be used to help address these issues:
There’s not much doubt that AI is going to significantly transform the way we live and work, although there’s not much clarity yet on how that will evolve. Digital supply chains are a key for unlocking real potential.
Organizations’ agility and adaptability need to be extremely high, enabling changes in strategy for adapting to new approaches to managing complex networks.
Digital supply chains are a growing reality today and future enhancement will be unlocked by AI-enabled technologies. Staying alert and connected to what’s happening is critical to longer-term competitiveness and success