Tech Innovations the Supply Chain Industry Will See by 2020

The common trend among all the changes that advancements in technology and the entire scope of innovations is change. Advancements in technology have affected various industries and the supply chain, especially in the food industry. Since the jubilation of the millennium, anticipation about what tech innovations will do come the year 2020 has started creeping in slowly. Supply chains have become faster, more efficient, more reliable, and more global than ever before. The big question in most manufacturers' minds is: what do we expect by the year 2020? Here is a list of some of the predicted impacts that tech and innovations are expected to have caused in the supply chain.

Analyzing customers will be more automated

Currently, there are technologies such as Big Data and Search Engine tools like Google analytics that enable online business owners or businesses with websites to understand their customers by recording their data. The more time these customers spend on various online platforms, the more these tools and software analyze their behavior so as to utilize them in decision making.

The future generation of supply chain management (SCM) technology is going to utilize these insights in enabling its management team to be more proactive about demand planning among other trends. The SCM tech will need to be more proactive in its customer behavior through predictive analytics so as to come up with ways of enabling various suppliers to anticipate customers' needs and meet them up front in an on-demand world. For instance, shipping companies will be in a position to ship items to customers before customers demand for them.

Improved transparency

Currently, we have various software in the chain of production like the checkweigher that have helped most companies, especially food manufacturing plants to maintain efficiency and transparency in their chains of production. This is by ensuring that their packaged food products are within the required standards or limits. Ethical product sourcing is another way customers have greatly benefited with more startup businesses and the young people joining the bandwagon. The Millennials of this fast paced world are willing to spend more to ensure that their money is going to socially responsible vendors.

SCM tech has made it possible to get notifications on risks, financial information, and ethics for members of the supply chain. But, all these alerts that promote transparency are expected to become even more immediate and responsive by the year 2020. You will be able to analyze the successes of your SCM technology in 2020 and make immediate corrections, saving you some quality time, which translates into bigger profits.

Growth in internet

The internet of things has made huge impacts in people's lives both in regards to their careers and personal lifestyles. It's comfortable to predict that since it has impacted the SCM in terms of fleet management things are bound to expand into the future. In the sector of product storage and shipment advancements in tech innovations may see the introduction of sensors that can monitor various food products' sensitivity to environmental conditions such as temperature and pressure, or increase the digitization of food products' tracking and hence help in protecting food manufacturing companies against incurring substantial losses.

Technology may function as the demand signal for initiating the chain of supply. This is already happening with printers that order ink when levels go down and refrigerators that reorder food. There could be demand sensors that touch everything from food supplies to medical devices.

Digitized procurement

A majority of companies haven't digitized their procurement processes. As tech innovations continue evolving, by 2020, most of these mid-sized and small businesses will adopt the paperless systems in almost all their operations. Some will even start using robotics and computing in everything that they do.