Title: Unraveling the Challenges of Post-COVID Supply/Demand Chaos: Achieving Excellence in Fulfillment
Post-COVID-19 supply and demand disruptions have significantly impacted businesses worldwide, giving rise to a new set of challenges in achieving efficient fulfillment and final mile delivery. While the chaos is gradually easing, companies are faced with the task of developing long-term strategies for growth and resilience in the face of ongoing omnichannel fulfillment challenges.
To achieve fulfillment excellence and overcome these hurdles, businesses need to focus on five key milestones:
1. Think Holistically: Breaking Down Organizational Silos
Many organizations are grappling with fragmented digital maturity, with siloed divisions and multiple supply chains that have evolved over time. As a result, they find themselves dealing with inefficiencies caused by manual data entry and lack of integration. To address these issues, companies must break down internal silos and remove manual data entry barriers to achieve greater efficiency.
2. Integrate Technology to Boost Efficiencies
Streamlining data and transitioning from manual entry to real-time data integration is vital for optimizing operations. By standardizing data and breaking down information silos, businesses can leverage aggregated volume, reconfigure routes, and improve asset utilization. This integration should be supported by clear communication to foster cultural changes necessary for the entire organization to benefit. Through technological integration, companies gain the ability to comparison shop, negotiate with, and manage multiple carriers, enabling automation of warehouse operations and improving overall efficiency.
3. Perfect within the Organization First
Businesses must fine-tune their operations internally before expanding further. This involves deploying automation and optimization software and integrating it with order, warehouse, and transportation management systems. By removing internal silos, organizations can establish a steady flow of real-time data across the enterprise, enhancing visibility and providing precise insights into cycle times and cost-to-serve. This phase also includes automating pick and pack processes, optimizing inventory management, and integrating customer support for orders and returns.
4. Collaborate and Expand Beyond Organizational Walls
Once internal operations and processes are optimized, businesses can deepen relationships with suppliers, carriers, logistics vendors, partners, and sales channels. Collaboration opportunities emerge, replacing adversarial negotiations with joint investments, process improvements, and demand forecasting. This allows businesses to diversify supplier and carrier selection to manage risk, increase sell-through rates, and reduce inventory carrying costs. Moreover, increased visibility enables shipping from a transparent endless aisle, nearly eliminating stockouts, and building stronger relationships with carriers, resulting in preferential freight terms.
5. Orchestrate and Optimize Continuous Improvement
At this stage, businesses strive to establish best practices by setting high standards for order perfection. With a global supply chain supported by state-of-the-art automated warehousing and intermodal carrier networks, companies focus on resiliency, agility, and delivering exceptional customer experiences. Continuous improvement becomes a priority with reinvestment of ROI in new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics. These tools further enhance planning, modeling, and automation, enabling businesses to expand into new markets, channels and add value with innovative products and services.
It is important to note that not all companies may reach the final milestones, as smaller or less diversified businesses may achieve their desired level of maturity earlier in the process. Regardless, the key is to address specific challenges and take incremental steps to achieve desired outcomes.
The Fulfillment and Final-Mile Maturity Model, developed by Pierbridge in collaboration with Microlistics WMS, serves as a guiding framework for businesses navigating the complex omnichannel fulfillment landscape. With the growth of direct-to-consumer fulfillment, this model assists companies in benchmarking their current state against strategic objectives. By implementing scalable processes and technology, businesses can optimize performance, enhance customer experiences, and respond to operational threats and market opportunities while preserving margins and working capital.
As businesses work towards fulfillment excellence, digital maturity, and resilience, it is crucial to prioritize each milestone according to their unique needs. By doing so, organizations can adapt to current challenges and be poised for growth in a dynamic business environment.
