A true omnichannel experience for businesses is critical to maintain and grow their customer base and market share. Customers want to personalize their experience and demand the flexibility to purchase online as seamlessly as they can within a brick and mortar store. These customer expectations add a lot of pressure on a supply chain and logistics. There needs to be a focus on fulfilling customers online while simultaneously replenishing stock within the retail locations. This increased change in consumer behavior requires a new supply chain network approach. If customers encounter roadblocks when purchasing a product, a company will likely lose its market share to the competition. Businesses will need to diversify and update their supply chain strategy to support changes in how they get a product to customers.
Omnichannel supply chains are distinctly different from traditional supply chains because barriers and silos need to be broken down by integrated solutions offering full visibility and optimal performance. Analytics become more important than ever to help leadership make critical business decisions, differentiate amongst the competition, and meet the ever-evolving customer expectations.
While businesses have now stabilized in-store operations after being shut down, they need to think about new ways to innovate to support the shift in how customers shop. On top of full visibility across the supply chain, businesses will need reporting and analytics on demand planning and inventory, production timelines, and factory optimization to effectively manage an omnichannel network. Agility across the supply chain should be another important factor that companies need to take into account. When you ensure a diversified vendor network with several tiers of alternative solutions will prevent disruption due to unforeseen circumstances.
Without technology to monitor all of these moving parts, businesses will not have the ability to manage all of the necessary details in real-time. Changes across the supply chain happen on a minute-to-minute basis, and an end-to-end system gives companies the competitive edge of smart forecasting and data-backed decision making. Ultimately, technology will optimize its long-term supply chain strategies to stay relevant to changes in consumer behavior.
Learn how the Suuchi GRID supports an omnichannel supply chain strategy
