Putting customers at the center with intelligent fulfillment

This has been a pivotal year for supply chains. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical need for resilient and responsible supply chains that can keep essential medical supplies, food and other necessities flowing where they’re needed most.

Facing major shifts in consumer demands and behaviors that were further accelerated by the pandemic, companies are now focused on transforming their supply chains to contribute to a customer experience that leads to growth. Customer-centric supply chains are no longer a luxury, they’re an imperative for meeting future business requirements, as well as “black-swan” shifts in supply and demand.

Accenture research shows just 10% of companies were on the right path to building customer-centric supply chains prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those with advanced digital capabilities (including the use of analytics and collaboration platforms) and ecosystem agility have been able to weather the current pandemic better than those who did not.

A resilient and responsible customer-centric supply chain embedded with digital capabilities needs to be anchored on four core characteristics: tailored, agile, trustworthy and innovative.

Tailored

Digital technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence play a key role in providing personalized, last-mile delivery and direct-to-consumer offerings that give customers what they want, where and when they want it. Other capabilities like advanced analytics can help companies leverage the world of information to best understand how to serve customer needs in order to build a truly customer-centric supply chain.

Agile

The Accenture survey showed most companies lack the flexibility to deliver differentiated customer offerings on demand. To do this, companies should focus on restructuring their legacy supply chain to create multiple supply chains tailored to specific segments based on unique value propositions. Companies should also focus on an asset-light supply chain model, leveraging the breadth and depth of their partner ecosystem—to allow them to flex in sync with changing customer demands.

Trustworthy

Trust is paramount in a customer-centered supply chain. Several capabilities play a role in helping companies build lasting trust through sustainability, social responsibility and radical transparency. One example is blockchain that can be an important enabler, providing full traceability across the value chain from raw materials all the way through final delivery.

Additionally, technologies such as IoT and RFID, coupled with analytics, are helping companies embed circular economy practices and increase the ability to track resources and monitor waste capacity—contributing to sustainability goals.

Innovative

New technologies bring new opportunities to learn more about customers and provide new products and services that will attract and delight them. Digital assistants and connected household devices allow customers to place orders, track deliveries, and coordinate returns from any location.

Wearable devices transmit data indicating customer usage, location, and frequency. And there’s much more to come, as the deployment of 5G is expected to further boost e-commerce revenue by $12 billion by 2021.

Companies need to constantly evaluate how to leverage these innovative technologies—considering where they can be used to enhance both the internal and external customer experience.

Embrace customer-centricity through intelligent fulfillment

The world is moving quickly and customers are moving with it, which makes attracting and retaining them harder than ever. Companies need to redesign their supply chains to be growth engines by creating customer-centric fulfillment capabilities that deliver the experiences that customers crave.

With the right actions, supply chain leaders can turn supply chain disruption into meaningful change and build long-term resilience to outmaneuver uncertainty and achieve growth. Those that do will achieve competitive advantage now and in the future.