Supply chain management and IT: the five trends of Christmas

Every year around this time, we usually get a lot of analyses of the year that has (almost) gone, and forecasts of what might (or might not) happen in the year ahead.

It’s a tough choice: review or look ahead? Let’s opt for the future and look at some interesting statistics.

Five trends in SCM and IT

Afraid of the digital transformation

Every fifth employee is terrified of the implementation of new digital technologies at work. Among business leaders the ratio is even above average at 22%. This is most likely due to their responsibility for the implementation itself and the management of corresponding organisational changes. What is also surprising is the high share of people under the age of thirty reflecting mixed feelings about new technologies in everyday business despite their digital socialisation. (Source: Sopra Steria Consulting)

Autonomous driving

Up to 100 billion euros value-added economic benefit could be generated on a global level through autonomous delivery vehicles. Their use could reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) for operating businesses by 50%. At the same time, they would reduce standing times and optimise capacity utilisation.

Today, drivers account for 30-40% of the total cost of a heavy commercial vehicle. This cost even goes up to 60% for small commercial vehicles. The future of autonomous driving with regards to mass production is not far off: by 2025, every third commercial vehicle sold in Europe is planned to offer fully autonomous driving capabilities in certain traffic scenarios – on the expressway, for example. (Source: McKinsey)

Return management

About 17% loss of revenue is caused by damaged returns in e-commerce. 75% of online traders already experienced damages to original packaging of returned items. Every fifth return shipment (21%) reflects such damages and almost half of these items cannot be re-sold at the original price. Online traders report according discounts for returned goods at an average of 35%.

Traders of electronics and textiles are hit especially hard, with 36% and 21% discounts respectively. Missing product tags or labels also affect the textile industry in particular: online traders report an average of 42% discount for returned clothing items with such damages. This applies to almost every second returned clothing item. This leads overall to the estimated loss of revenue of 17%. (Source: Händlerbund)

Delivery by drone or robot

33% of internet users above the age of 14 can imagine getting parcels delivered by drone. Almost the same number (32%) can imagine parcel deliveries by robot. 9% reported they will definitely make use of such delivery methods in the future. (Source: Bitkom)

Distribution logistics

15 drones are planned to deliver medicines in Rwanda to improve the medical care throughout the East African country. With its mini-planes, Silicon Valley based start-up Zipline plans to deliver medicine or blood conserves without delay to hospitals and health centres that are hard to reach due to poor infrastructures. (Source: Zipline)

Hopefully you enjoyed the brief fact check on these trending topics – I look forward to developments in 2017. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.