Supply chains should ultimately be about moving products around at the speed of atoms. It may not seem possible as we saw with PPE’s during Covid, where those with the largest wallet got the vastly over proportionate share of resources. Access and funding should not be the key determinants of how a supply system should work in the new world where the world is flat or should be much flatter. Increasing pressures on supply chains that distort reasonable fairness are going to increasingly damage the sense or need or vision for equality in the world.
As consumers our need for near infinite choice and near immediate gratification as well as our ability to search and hunt everywhere online for anything means we expect to receive things exponentially faster and infinitely customizable.
Brands like Apple have in effect created their own supply chain that turns products one hundred plus times a year like a food store. Most companies cannot afford or are able to deliver a fully integrated, very high velocity supply chain that can deliver a pair of shoes and a very specific color instantly to a home. We might want one pair of Adidas Gazelle size 9.5, black suede with a green tongue but that is not how the supply chain model works. A pair of black suede- Adidas Gazelle size 9.5 can be ordered and shipped, but it takes five days to get to you in the traditional model. Overnight air shipping is too expensive, and it still takes three days. The need for instant gratification is vital and some seventy percent of the reasons products are often returned is the buzz came from the shopping did not continue when the product arrived. Atom like speed will reduce this challenge.
Scott has two components of this mew supply chain future:
· Shared resources should sit as the common denominator (malls, parcel post, cardboard boxes). This would enable a smooth transition through every point in the supply chain. In effect democratizing supply chains as one eco system. This could mean a reduction from days to hours. For example a manufacturing unit’s availability and data is as transparently available to a consumer as it to the channels partners.
· Companies should be built bottoms up on data analytics. This means we build around the supply chain of data to deliver instant complete gratification, not just the shopping experience, but the whole experience. In effect E-commerce becomes the analytics for the company and the consumer to encourage products being able to move at the speed of atoms.
In the future Adidas forward places the product and makes it available to all players who can deliver, store, online, in the store purchase in sub-atomic speed. The system is constantly adjusting together.
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