Disruptive Innovations in Supply...

Disruptive Innovations in Supply Chain

2015

Authors-

Naman Goel

Sakshi Goel

Institution- NarseeMonjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai

Position- Student MBA 1st Year, Batch of 2014-16

SOUTH -ASIAN JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDIES (SAJMS) ISSN:2349-7858 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 4

Published By : Universal Multidisciplinary Research Institute Pvt Ltd

Abstract

Innovations capture imagination, motivate people and improve quality of life. Most are continual improvements which are practiced to stay ahead in market but disruptive innovation redefines market.

Among the plethora of innovations,parameters on which a truly effective innovation should be prioritized are mentioned below-

1. Impact of make or buy decision on the internal operations and future of the firm 2. Relation between technology and optimal utilization of supply chain 3. Importance of agility 4. Achieving a balance between need for coordination and information overload

Coupled with bottlenecks of Indian Economy three highly apt innovations that can reshape supply chain are-

3D Printing

Referred to as additive manufacturing scores high on parameter 1 and 3. It fabricates products by accumulating thin layers of materials using three-dimensional, computer-aided designs and can reduce cycle time of new product development, streamline maintenance & support extreme JIT.

Drone Delivery System

Self-delivery systems scored high on parameter 2.Taken to scale, it could alleviate problems with transportation i.e. infrastructure, traffic, piracy, etc.

Big Data

High on parameters 2, 3&4.Big Data has significant capabilities of forecasting using real time dashboards, demand planning, supply planning, fulfillment and delivery by using proactive tracking methods.

Finally we studied the effect of these technologies on organizational structures, business models and economy as several stakeholders are affected due to such transformations.



I. Introduction

Supply chain Management (SCM) seems to be a growing area of interest amongst researchers

and practitioners from varied disciplines. Generally Supply Chain consists of different

functions: logistics, purchasing, inventory, procurement, planning, production, intra-and

inter-organizational relationships and performance measures. To improve the overall

performance of Supply Chain the members of Supply Chain must behave as part of a unified

system and coordinate with each other. Some Indian companies are moving towards making

their supply chain and logistics efficient, however if these companies choose to compete in

the global environment, they will have to search for ways to reduce expenditures. This

reduction in cost will need the revamping of supply chains, innovations and significant

investment in information technology, because information technology tools and techniques

play tremendous role in the performance of the Supply Chain.

India’s challenges include low productivity and inadequate access to basic resources.

According to R Chandrasekhar, president NASSCOM, “There are clearly some gaps that

need to be filled first. Lack of infrastructure, hard and soft, is the most obvious one, and then

there is lack of digital literacy”.

We identify 3 disruptive innovations which can help India improve its Supply Chain by

making it efficient and solve problems of infrastructure, low productivity, etc.

This paper is organized into 3 sections each catering to an innovation with its implications on

various sectors of economy like healthcare, education, agriculture, energy, manufacturing,

services and infrastructure.

1.1 Supply Chain Defined

The Council of Logistic Management (CLM) (2000) defines SCM as “the systematic,

strategic coordination of the traditional business functions and tactics across these business

functions within a particular organization and across business within a supply chain for the

purpose of improving the long term performance of the individual organizations and the

supply chain as a whole”.



II. Methodology

Secondary Research was conducted to identify pertinent problems faced in supply chain and

3 technologies were identified. Further extensive research was carried out about these

technologies pertaining to these topics-

General Overview of these innovations

Definition/About the technology (Technical Details) in its current form

Impacts on Supply Chain(why when where how it is disruptive)

Other impacts including job structure, other domains

Economic Impact

Potential consumer uses

Barriers and Enablers

Implications on society, life, health, environment, pattern of consumption,

productivity, employment, legal environment, etc.



Disruptive Innovations in Supply Chain Management

III. 3-D Printing

The prospect of converting digital bits into physical atoms to create objects just like a deskjet

printer creates 2-D images of a digital image has made 3-D printing gain wider acceptance as

the next ‘industrial revolution’. These machines can download digital bottle and can convert

it to physical bottle. Users can now create their own jewellery, utensils, helmets, etc. at the

click of a button. However skeptics have discounted the technology stating its current

limitations and low levels of adoption.

Our research finds that 3-D printing is in its nascent stage much like the desktop computers

were in 1980s. Personal 3-D printers are available at less than $1000 and is gaining

acceptance amongarchitects, designers, custom parts manufacturers,etc. With mass

production and newer delivery channels we expect this technology to gain wider acceptance

and disrupt current manufacturing sector. According to McKinsey Global Institute it can have

potential impact on the world economy to the tune of $550 million by 2025.

3.1 About the Technology

3-D printing refers to additive manufacturing where objects are made by depositing layers

upon layers of material. It is opposite to conventional manufacturing(subtractive) like

machining where material is removed to get the desired shape of object.

Materials that 3-D printers can use today:

3-D printing techniques used today include: selective laser sintering, direct metal laser

sintering, fused deposition modeling, stereolithography, and inkjet bioprinting. In all cases,

objects are formed one layer at a time, each layer on top of the previous, until the final object

is complete. With some techniques this is accomplished by melting material and depositing it

in layers, while other techniques solidify material in each layer using lasers.

Plastic Metal Ceramics Glass Paper Living Cells


3.2 3-D Printing Process:

3.3 Use of 3-D Printing so far

3-D Printing so far has been used by Industries and Hobbyists. Industries have used 3-D

printing for rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing.

It is used by hobbyists to manufacture anything ranging from a guitar, gun, toys, and models.

However they use it for primarily:

3-D CAD File

•A CAD file can either be created or downloaded from internet

3-D Printing

•Layers upon layers are deposited while allowing time for each layer to solidify

Final Product

•Final Product is then removed from mould

Motor Vehicles32%

Consumer Products18%

Business Machines11%

Medical9%

Academic9%

Aerospace8%

Government/Military5%

Others8%

Breakdown of Worldwide Rapid Prototyping Use


3.4 Current Stage of 3-D Innovation Adoption and Future

As discussed 3-D printing currently is used by industries for rapid prototyping majorly.

However as it continues to grow and mature, it can address important needs. In highly

competitive consumer products markets, it can meet rising expectations for quality design

and personalization, better fit for items such as helmets and shoes. 3-D printing also has

potential to address issues related to environment and waste management.

Improvements in performance and speed along with falling costs is likely to spread use of 3D

printing in the coming decade. An average industrial printer today sells for about $75,000,

and some highly specialized machines cost upward of $1 million. However, these costs are

expected to decline in coming years as economies of scale is achieved. Speed and quality of

output is also bound to increase with the advancement in technology. Fraunhofer Institute for

Laser Technology points a 4x increase in printing speeds for metal objects.

It is difficult to predict with certainty when will 3-D printing be mass adopted and become

disruptive. However, we have used Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations and adoption rate of

PC’s in US to predict when this technology will become disruptive.

14%

14%

13%

13%11%

8%

7%

6%

5%5% 4%

Hobbyists use 3-D Printing for

Functional Models

Artistic Items

Spare Parts to Devices

For Research/Educational Purposes

Direct Part Production

Covers and such for devices

Presentation Models

Furniture and Household Decoration

Used for pattern/in moulds

Visual Aids

Others


Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations:

It is a theory that predicts at what rate is new technology adopted by users.

Rate of adoption of PC in US:

Data Source: Econstats, World Bank data & World Development indicators (See Appendix

for data)

y = 0.081x2 - 322.3x + 31814R² = 0.991

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

PC's per 100 people in US

Innovators Early Adopters Early Majority Late

There were 0.02 PC's per

100 in US

1975There were 100 PC per 100 in US

2009


3-D printing is still in Innovators stage with. In a recent study conducted by “Statistical

Studies of Peer production” about the 3D printing hobbyists community only 350 respondents

could be found. This is an indicator of the burgeoning community of hobbyists and thus

places it in innovator stage of Roger’s Diffusion of innovations’.

If we use adoption rate of PC as a base to predict rate of adoption of 3-D printing we get

following graph:

3D Printing is here


Thus every person will hold a 3-D printer by 2040. This can have a profound effect on world

economy and traditional manufacturing practices. Other contributors that will provide

impulse to widespread use of 3-D printing is:

Falling prices of printers: Prices of 3D printers using fused deposition modeling

technology have declined from $30,000 a few years ago to less than $1,000 for some

models.

Rapidly spreading services: Shapeways in US already has more than 8,000 online

shops and shipped 1 million parts in 2012.

Falling prices of printing material: The materials used in 3D printing still remain

costly (generally about 50 to 100 times greater than materials used for injection

molding), but prices are declining rapidly and can be expected to decline further as

volumes increase.

3.4 Effects that it will have on Economy and Industries it will Disrupt

According to a report published by McKinsey Global Institute 3D printing could generate

economic impact of $230 billion to $550 billion per year. The largest source of potential

impact among could come from consumer uses, followed by direct manufacturing and using

3D printing to make molds. However we found many more markets to be disrupted by this

technology.

10 disrupting effects 3-D printing will have on businesses, consumers and world economy

1. Revolutionizing Mass Manufacturing

3D printing due to falling costs and rising adoption will disrupt many mass manufacturing

industries like

Food

•Anything that exists in liquid or powder form can be 3D printed, so naturally, printed food is one of the next big conversations.

Military

•A 3D gun has already been printed, so it's only a matter of time before the technology catches on in this industry.

Electronics

•The size, shape, and materials used to make electronics make this industry a natural candidate for 3D printing.

Toys

•Home 3D printers and open source design will change the way children create and play.

Automotive

•This industry is already utilizing the technology—Ford reportedly uses 3D printing to test parts.


2. Medicine and Healthcare

Bioprinting can be used to produce liver cells. Organovo specializes in this technology and

plans to start commercial production of liver tissues in 2015. In the near future we can see

even organs being produced using this technology. Patients would not have to wait for a

donor anymore.

3. Education

MakerBot has started MakerBot academy in various institutes and schools and plans to

revamp how engineering and other technical courses are taught. Institutes will use 3D printers

to help students better understand manufacturing and thus enhance their interests in this field.

4. Arts

Architects and artists can use 3D printing to create niche models and sculptures. They can

even replicate famous paintings like those of Van Gogh and place in museums. This will

open up huge markets for artists and museums.

5. Environment

6. Zero Gravity Manufacturing

NASA has used 3D printers on International Space Station to produce spare parts. This

reduces payload of rockets carrying to supplies to space station

7. Customized Home Products

Domestic Consumers can now produce customized jewellery, utensils, etc. with their own

designs. This will disrupt current set up of jewellery and retail chains.

Fewer Wasted Materials

•3D manufacturing is additive instead of subtractive and thus no waste is generated

Longer life span

•Products that were thrown away due to unavailablity of spare part could now be used by producing parts on 3D printer

Less transport

•Localisation of manufacturing will reduce global supply chains

Fewer Unsold products

•It betters upholds concept of JIT and thus less of inventory pile up is there



8. Intellectual Property Threats

3D printers will make counterfeit products readily available as users can download CAD file

and manufacture themselves. Copyright and intellectual property rights lawyers will gain

demand.

9. Accessibility of untapped markets

Many developing nations were aloof from global supply chains due to geopolitical issues.

However this technology can help tap those markets with local manufacturing.

10. Restructuring of Global Economy

Localised manufacturing and reduced labor requirement will shift manufacturing out from

China and put it back to countries like Japan and USA. Many niche businesses will also come

up.


IV. Drone Delivery System

Coming out from military origins as a need for warfare, like many technologies drones are

now being used for commercial purposes. Mass adoption of this technology can solve many

supply chain issues ranging from increasing cost of transportation, poor infrastructureand

manpower issues specially during peak seasons to competition. However much needs to be

improved in terms of current technology and regulations concerning safety for drones to be

commercialize. We see this technology adopting the same path as 3-D printing.

4.1 About the technology

Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that are either controlled from the ground by

operators or are pre-programmed to fly.

Essentially drones have a GPS navigation system, a high resolution camera, flight necessities

like engine, fuel etc., and accessories like missiles, spray, etc. that depends on its use.

Drone Operations

TargetDroneSatelliteControl Center



A control center relays signals to a satellite which is then relayed back to the drone. The

drone then presumes flight and is controlled by again relaying signals back to control center

through the satellite. The control center guides the drone to the desired location and carries

out the desired task.

Development of modern day drones has been a systematic multi-disciplinary phenomenon.

Sensors, flight programs, materials, camera, etc. all have contributed to development of this

technology in current form.

4.2 Major factors responsible for development of modern day drone are:

1. GPS: In 1981, first commercial GPS weighed 50 pounds with cost over $100K. However

today GPS comes on a 0.3 gram chip costing less than $5.

2. IMU: An Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) measures drone’s velocity, acceleration and

orientation. In 1960s an IMU (think Apollo program) weighed over 50 lbs. and cost millions.

In 2014 it’s a couple of chips for less than $1 on our phone.

3. Digital Cameras: In 1976, Kodak’s first digital camera shot at 0.1 megapixels, weighed

3.75 pounds and cost over $10,000. Today’s these cameras are a billion times better (1000x

resolution, 1000x smaller and 100x cheaper).

4. Computers & Wireless Communication (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth): Computing technology and

wireless price-performance have become a billion times better.

4.3 Current Use of Drones- Industries

1. Agriculture: Drones watch for disease, collect real-time data on crop yields and health and

spray pesticides uniformly. This is an estimated $3B annual market size.

2. Energy: Energy companies monitor oil rigs and miles of pipeline using autonomous

drones.

3. Real Estate and Construction: Drones photograph and monitor construction on sites,

prospect and advertise real estate banners from golf courses to skyscrapers.

4. Rapid Response and Emergency Services: Drones aid in search and rescue operations

ranging from searching for people to forest fire fighting using infrared sensors.



5. News: It’s safer and faster to deploy drones to cover breaking news, disaster, war zones

than human news crews.

6. Package/Supply Delivery: Companies like Amazon are building networks of UAVs to

deliver packages. Facebook has acquired tech firms and wishes to use drones to provide

internet connectivity to millions in remote villages.

7. Photography/Film: Drones are used to capture beautiful images and camera angles.

8. Scientific Research/Conservation: Drones assist in everything from counting sea lions in

Alaska to conducting weather and environmental research to tracking herd movements on the

Savannah in Africa.

9. Law Enforcement: Drones are used during hostage situations, search and rescue

operations, bomb threats, when pursuing armed criminals and to monitor drug trafficking

across borders.

10. Toys: Drones are used as toys as well.

4.4 Drone Delivery System-Disruptive technology

Ongoing improvement in technology will reduce price of drones and coupled with the hurdles

in other sectors which the drone can cater to this technology looks promising. It is well on

route to follow the same evolution pattern of computers and 3-D printing as discussed above.

Confluence of three major technologies identified that will promote drones to be a disruptive

technology are:

1. The Internet of Everything: Drones will play a key rolein our trillion-sensor future,

carrying a variety of sensors (thermal imaging, pressure, audio, radiation, chemical,

biologics, and imaging) and will be connected with the Internet. They will communicate with

each other and with their operators which could even be domestic consumers.

2. Advanced Battery Technology: Increases in energy density (kilowatt-hours per kg) will

allow them to operate for extended periods of time. Moreover, improvements in solar battery

technology is allowing high-altitude drones to fly for weeks without landing.

3. Automation Software & Artificial Intelligence:Teams around the world are working on

automation systems that



a) Make drones easier for untrained users to fly

b) Allow drones to fly and operate autonomously

These advancements will put drones easier and much affordable to use by domestic

consumers.

4.5 4 phases of evolution that Drones are following

Phase 1: Operational Utility: Getting it done

In this phase firms adopt a technology to get work done more efficiently. This phase is

marked by early adopters. An example of this is use of drones for remote aerial photography

and videography, etc.

Phase 2: The Gimmick

In this phase firms showcase a newer technology to gain market attention. Firms may or may

not carry evolution of technology. Amazon’s Prime Air, Google, Dominos and Facebook all

are currently in this phase.

Phase 3: Service Differentiation

Now brands move from operational effectiveness and gimmickry to employing the new

technology to provide enhanced customer satisfaction. Amazon has moved from creating

rumors to trial runs of its drone delivery system Prime Air.

Phase 4: Consumer Commodity

In this phase drones will become readily available to carry out even mundane tasks like

bringing newspaper from door or following your child to school and keeping threats away

from him. Cleaning windows and removing snow will all be done with the comfort of your

mobile phone through an app.

4.6 Barriers to technology

Apart from the technical challenges already discussed on how drones will become disruptive

following are the social challenges identified that impede commercialization of drones



Much needs to be done to solve these issues. In USA FAA Modernization and reform Act of

2012 prevents the use of drones for commercial purposes which has kept Amazon’s Prime

Air rounded. However this act expires in 2015 which could be seen as an inflection point in

drone systems.

4.7 Industries that Future Drones can Disrupt

1. Transportation and Logistics: Just as postal service revolutionized how we send articles

and mails to individuals drones will take it one step further to delivering even food and

medicines. Example is amazon’s prime air which is proposed to deliver package within 30

minutes if the home is within 50 miles of warehouse. In India where roads are in poor

condition and traffic jams slow down delivery these drones could come as major relief.

However sales of low commercial vehicles like Tata Ace may go down as drones replace

them. Even Google has launched project wing to explore the possibilities.

2. Internet Connectivity: In March 2014 Facebook bought Ascenta, a solar powered drone

company, and it plans to produce drones equipped with technology that can communicate

with satellites and send signals to earth for internet connectivity. A network of such drones

could stay up for 5 years and provide internet connectivity to rural areas. India has just 19%

internet connectivity and it could change e-commerce, banking and telecommunications

scenario in India tremendously.

In terms of supply chain, the drones will positively affect numerous industries, from

agriculture, to medicine, to retail. The resulting efficiency can justify some recalibration of

our privacy expectations - expectations that have already encountered paradigm shifts due to

the digital fingerprints we leave all over the public sphere through credit card transactions,

Wi-Fi usage, and storage in the cloud.

Privacy SpyingInterference

with helicopters

No rules and guidelines

Illegal acivities Safety and crashing Noise Theft



Acceptance of commercial drones will require us to adapt personally (in terms of tolerance)

and industrially (in terms of infrastructure and regulation); but the undeniable benefits of this

and previous disruptive technologies make the change inevitable.



V. Big Data

Big data means a collection of electronic information from numerous sources and applying

analytics to identify patterns, trends, and other intelligence. The analysis might point to things

that have occurred in the past but weren’t perceivable, or it might help a company to predict

what would happen in the future.

Today, more and more companies are demanding that their managers understand data and

analytics. Before supply chain managers can grasp how analytics and big data can be used in

their departments, they should first understand not only what those concepts actually mean

but also what difference they can make.

MIT Center for Digital Business, working in partnership with McKinsey’s business

technology officeconducted a survey to test the hypothesis that data-driven companies would

be better performers and came out with the below mentioned results-

Companies in the top third of their industry using data-driven decision making

were, on average, 5% more productive and 6% more profitable than their

competitors.

5.1 Companies experience with big data till date-

The “big” part of big data refers to the ‘volume’ of information available for analysis. In the

supply chain context, that might include data starting from point-of-sale systems, bar-code

scanners, radio frequency identifiers, global positioning system devices for vehicles and for

cell phones, and software systems used to manage transportation, warehousing and different

operations.



5.2 Features of Big Data which make future predictable-

VARIETY - Not just the volume but the variety of data matters a lot. Data comes from a

different sources and includes structured as well as non-structured data which has text,

images and other formats. Different sources may include social media websites, online

communication and call centers. It is important to bring all this different data to a

consensus.

VELOCITY - Another dimension of big data is speed. Historical data analysis was a talk

of the past, today if companies want to head off problems such as inventory shortfalls, or

late deliveries due to bad weather, it is important to analyze data on a real or near-real

time basis.

VOLUME – According to a recent statistics, around 2.5 Exabyte’s of data is collected

each day. This gives data analysts opportunity to work with terabytes of data. For

example, it is estimated that Walmart collects more than 2.5 petabytes of data every hour

from its customer transactions.

5.3 How does Big Data help in supply chain??

Big Data - improve the way you sell, make, move, and buy

Supply chain managers don't need to know the technical details of big data but they do need

to realize that they can and should capture and analyze data for positive business outcomes.

For example, if you have sensors on your manufacturing, warehousing, or trucking

equipment, hadoop and data mining can help you to analyze the data those sensors collect.

You could use the information to predict when machines will fail or to improve the fuel

efficiency of trucks. Or you can use the recorded customers' voicemails and e-mails, to

analyze this data to help your company provide better service.

To transform data into business value, a big data architecture should be developed as a supply

chain that can manage and process the volume, variety, and velocity of data.

This process of transformation can be divided into three steps:


Link and optimize your entire supply chain system -Go beyond “fragments”: capture benefits

ranging from operations to marketing

Consumer-centric companies such as retailers have a lot of data about their customers and in

today’s interconnected world, as the volume, variety and velocity of data about a consumer is

growing businesses are finding this data critical to drive business decisions around market

segmentation, personalization, and merchandising through it. They are using it to avoid lost

revenues due to stock outs, lower visit to buy ratios, inefficiencies in merchandising,

lower average sales price, and lower number of items purchased per online visit.

In a nutshell, not being able to gain insights from stocks of data means retailers are allowing

their competition to identify critical business trends and act on those before they can, thus

losing business.

Identify business goals

Gain an overall vision

Prioritize business goals, generate insights, and validate hypotheses and analytic models

Make big data insights operational

Devops team should work in conjunction with data analyst

Both should make sure that actionable information is communicated to stakeholders, customers, and partners.

Build a big data pipeline

Collect data from different mediumsIntegrate, cleanse, and prepare dataBrowse data and visualize and discover patterns, trends, and insightsTransform and distribute actionable information to end-users

•access data from different sources-social media, e commerce channels and bind them together

•Insigts and analytics help to predict customer behavior more accurately and provide meaningful recommendations

360-degree customer analytics

• Real-time operational intelligence• Predictive analytics• Fraud detection

Greater customer loyalty with

personalization and micro

segmentation


Better Inventory management

Inventory data along with weather predictions, history of sales and seasonality is considered

as an input to the model for forecasting and planning supply chain.

Logistics optimization

Constant sourcing and continuous analysis of transportation through GPS and other logistics

data and using them for demand forecasting and optimization helps to improve distribution

management.

Achieve business objectives:

Big data helps in achieving business objectives through demand forecasting and supply chain

planning. It involves three steps which facilitates enterprises in supply chain management.

Reduce loss of sales and

business due to stock outs

Appropriate stock

management through forecast

Prevents out of stock and over stock conditions

Optimization of logistics

leads to fuel optimization

Efficient routing of vehicles

Operational excellence and better

supply chain visibility


5.4 Current state of Big Data

Scenario Management

Uncertain business scenarios make future planning difficultScenario Management helps create scenarios, compare multiple scenariosHelps to balance conflicting KPIs and arrive at an optimal solution

Multi User Collaboration

Real business case scenarios comprise of highly complex data requiring support from analysts and domain expertsSofwares based on big data today enable multi user collaboration so that multiple users can produce optimal plans through its collaborative decision making process

4641

3636

3332

2828

2726

2014

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Improvement in customer service and demand …

Increase in supply chain efficiency of 10% or greater

Optimization of inventory and asset productivity

Improved cost to serve

Improvement in customer service and demand …

Shortened order-to-delivery cycle times

Results companies have achieved using big data

Series1 Series2

6359

5853

5251

4745

4443

1216

151819

13181919

17

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Shortened order-to-delivery cycle timesIncrease in supply chain efficiency of 10% or greater

Improvement in demand driven operationsImproved cost to serve

Better customer and supplier replationshipsMore effective S&OP process and decision making

Faster and more effective reaction time to supply chain …Optimization of inventory and asset productivity

Greater integration across the supply chainImprovement in customer service and demand …

Companies that embed big data in its supply chain operations

Embedded in day-to-day operations Used on ad hoc basis



Companies more frequently realized stronger results when they applied an enterprise-wide

strategy as opposed to the process-focused strategy.

Whether organizations increased their supply chain efficiency by at least 10%, improved

their customer relationships, or improved their cost to serve, respondents more frequently

reported achieving results when they took an enterprise-wide approach to Big Data analytics

as opposed to a process-focused strategy.

However, the application of an enterprise-wide strategy should be underpinned by a clear

view of what will help the company create value, differentiate themselves in the market, and

gain an understanding of how their industry is evolving or being disrupted. Then they can use

those insights to chart the business roadmap that can help them achieve their goals with Big

Data analytics.

5.5 Potential extensions in future

Cloud computing offers promise to connect the extended supply chain. It also shows great

potential to enable real-time benchmarking. Big data alone provides traditional benchmarking

techniques which are difficult because they are static. Cloud will make technology

deployments easier; but more importantly it will allow real-time sensing on benchmarking

data.

Thus we see a new generation of technologies evolving. For supply chain leaders, it is not

easy as user satisfaction with supply chain systems is at an all-time low, and the lack of

scalability of the first generation of solutions is strangling business decision-making.

Adapting systems to take advantage of new technologies is about more than modernizing

supply chains or stuffing new forms of data into existing architectures. It requires a redesign.

It is about improving visibility into business activities, providing better service to customers

and improving profitability. But, then shouldn’t this be what the supply chain is really all

about?



VI. Conclusion

The findings validate five principles that corporations can learn to better manage their supply

chains and prepare for future opportunities.

1. Supply chain disruptions have significant impact on company business and financial

performance.

2. Companies with mature supply chain and risk management capabilities are more resilient

to supply chain disruptions. They are impacted less and they recover faster than companies

with immature capabilities.

3. Companies that invest in supply chain flexibility are more resilient to disruptions than

companies that don’t.

4. Companies investing in risk segmentation are more resilient to disruptions than mature

companies that do not invest in risk segmentation.

5. Companies with mature capabilities in supply chain and risk management do better along

all surveyed dimensions of operational and financial performance than immature companies.

The potential benefits of the technologies discussed in the report are tremendous—but so are

the challenges of preparing for their impact. If business and government leaders wait until

these technologies are exerting their full influence on the economy, it will be too late to

capture the benefits or react to the consequences. While the appropriate responses will vary

by stakeholder and technology, we find that certain guiding principles can help businesses

and governments as they plan for the effects of disruptive technologies.

Business leaders should keep their organizational strategies updated in the face of continually

evolving technologies, ensure that their organizations continue to look ahead, and use

technologies to improve internal performance.

Policy makers can use advanced technology to address their own operational challenges (for

example, by deploying the Internet of Things to improve infrastructure management). The

nature of work will continue to change, and that will require strong education and retraining

programs.



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http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/operations-

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http://www.inboundlogistics.com/cms/article/leveraging-big-data/

3. Three things you should know about big data and analytics. Retrieved December 24, 2014

from http://www.supplychainquarterly.com/topics/Technology/20141107-three-things-you-

should-know-about-big-data-and-analytics/

4. Top 10 reasons drones are disruptive. Retrieved December 22, 2014 from

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdiamandis/2014/08/11/top-10-reasons-drones-are-

disruptive/

5.Amazon-google-ebay-eye-next-disruptive-technology-same-day-delivery Retrieved

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http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28964260

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Appendix

Econstats, World Bank Data for number of PC’s in US:

USA Number of Computers per 100 people

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985

0.923884 2.38708 5.20548 8.13315 10.621 12.972

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

15.6177 18.4377 20.0147 21.7127 23.3219

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

25.1448 27.0084 29.4536 32.4097 35.8583

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

39.977 44.9513 50.5304 57.0574 62.4382

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

76.3737 77.9535 80.6065

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