Digital Transformation In Supply Chain Management

Digital transformation is a term that is thrown around a lot, and people have different ways to interpret what it means. Essentially, digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business. ARC Advisory Group, where I work, publishes an analysis of the 25 manufacturers with the most mature digital transformations. The report identifies the leaders and highlights best practices. The report takes a holistic approach to what a digital transformation means. “Leading companies take a strategic approach, integrating digital technology throughout their value chains. Design and engineering, production operations, maintenance, logistics, supply chain, business systems, customers, products, and organizational structure are subject to innovative change as companies examine and update processes and deploy new tools and technologies.”

The majority of time when people are discussing digital transformation, they are not directly referring to the digital transformation of supply chains. APQC conducts research on supply chain and logistics to help organizations assess the performance of their own processes and functions compared to their peers. Most recently, the APQC has conducted best practice and benchmarking research on digital transformation. This survey-based research gathers quantitative data as well as information on practices or performance drivers. The final report focuses on the current state of key practices in digital transformation in supply chain management, spread across multiple industries and over 1,100 respondents.

There are many areas of digital transformation within the supply chain. This report provides a cross-industry perspective on digital transformation in logistics including digital maturity in inventory management, transportation, fleet maintenance, safety and compliance, and more.

APQC Digital Transformation in Logistics Results

On average, respondents report allocating 14 percent of their logistics and warehousing annual budget to technology. Of this technology budget, an average of 30 percent is typically allocated to digital transformation. Let’s take a deeper look at a few technology areas.

Inventory Management

Respondents report a wide variety of maturity levels for digital transformation initiatives in inventory management. From a maturity standpoint, the majority of respondents are digitizing data and processes. But, it varies on how the data and processes are being used form a technology standpoint. Ninety-one percent of respondents are digitizing data and processes collectively; but, only 31 percent are using predictive analytics and 26 percent are using artificial intelligence. This means that 29 percent of respondents are digitizing data and processes but not using advanced technology to make the data more actionable. A mere 6 percent of respondents are digitizing data and processes, using predictive analytics or artificial intelligence, and using automation to act on recommendations.

Transportation

For transportation, the numbers are roughly the same as far as maturity within the digital transformation journey. Eighty-eight percent of respondents are digitizing data and processes. Predictive analytics is used significantly more than artificial intelligence to optimize, as 35 percent are using predictive analytics compared to 17 percent for artificial intelligence. For these respondents, only 3 percent are digitizing data and processes, using predictive analytics or artificial intelligence, and using automation to act on recommendations. These numbers show a significant gap around the use of advanced technologies for optimization and decision-making.

Warehouse Equipment / Facility Management

Ninety-two percent of respondents are digitizing data and processes in warehouse equipment / facility management. These numbers are line with the aforementioned technology areas for digital supply chain transformation. Thirty-one percent of respondents are using predictive analytics and 24 percent are using artificial intelligence to optimize. For these respondents, 6 percent are digitizing data and processes, using predictive analytics or artificial intelligence, and using automation to act on recommendations.

Two other issues that come in digital transformation are compliance and safety. Within these areas, respondents are at the low end of the maturity model. For both compliance and safety, nearly one-third of respondents do not have any digital transformation initiatives in place. Additionally, about one-third of respondents have only digitized data and processes in these areas. Very few respondents use artificial intelligence to optimize their data compared to those that use predictive analytics to optimize their digitized data and processes.

Final Thought

The APQC survey gives an interesting look at digital transformation in logistics. Currently, respondents are at the mid-point of the maturity model when it comes to digital transformation initiatives in inventory management, transportation, and warehouse equipment / facility management. However, these respondents are showing that their organizations are on the low end when it comes to compliance and safety. Moving forward, I expect to see more interest, more investments, and more movement in digital transformation in logistics.

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Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2023/04/09/digital-transformation-in-supply-chain-management/?sh=5772b2083311

Digital Transformation: The Ultimate Customer Experience Overhaul

Fifty-three percent of early digital adopters say customer experiences have become a priority for their organizations over the past 12 months. This figure rises to a whopping 93% for advanced digital adopters, according to a 2023 study conducted by Foundry, an IDG, Inc. Company. This survey highlights customer-centricity as a key approach to a successful digital revolution.

Bringing out the importance of putting the customer at the center of any digital transformation strategy, Jeff Bezos once said, “There are many ways to center a business. You can be competitor focused, you can be product focused, you can be technology focused, you can be business model focused, and there are more. But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of day-one vitality.”

So how does digital transformation impact the customer experience?

By Offering A Hyperpersonalized Experience

Customers now expect brands to understand their needs and provide a more tailored experience. AI and machine learning can help make sense of the data shared by customers and allow for every customer interaction to be unique and personal.

Epsilon research (via TechCrunch) also indicated that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences.

Not just this, when brands get personalization right, marketing spending can deliver five to eight times the ROI and lift sales by 10% or more, according to McKinsey.

Three Ways To Implement Personalization Using AI

1. Analyze customer data: Since the standard CRM captures limited data and static buyer personas are too generic, AI uses the (vast) collected data and makes sense of it to get individual personalization right. Be it real-time location, context, behavior or values, AI works on critical customer variables and helps marketers understand what to offer, when and where.

2. Exclude data paralysis: Marketers have access to overwhelming sets of data. AI can help in this pursuit by collecting data that will continually evolve and adapt, helping marketers implement a more effective personalization strategy that delivers results.

3. Create evolving customer profiles: Using AI to create and target unique customer profiles can provide unique customer experiences. This way, each customer’s unique preferences will be catered to, leading to more successful campaigns.

By Establishing Omnichannel Functionalities

Businesses can tailor their messaging and promotions more effectively by offering a consistent customer experience across all channels.

The same is supported by a Forrester study that says that the companies with the strongest omnichannel customer engagement strategies enjoy a 10% Y-O-Y growth, a 10% increase in average order value and a 25% increase in close rates.

An omnichannel experience is made of three essential components: always available, consistent and personalized. So how can businesses provide an omnichannel experience to their customers?

Steps to Provide An Omnichannel Experience

• Define strategy and customer touchpoints: Have a clear plan in place with objectives, target audience, success metrics and adaptation. Identify customer touchpoints and pain points across all channels to upgrade the experience.

• Implement integrated technology: Invest in an integrated software architecture (omnichannel desktop, back-end interfaces and advanced analytics). This can include integrating your point-of-sale systems, customer relationship management tools and customer-facing platforms, among other tools.

• Get feedback and improvise: Employ platforms that use AI and advanced analytics to simplify heaps of customer feedback and customer-journey breakpoints. Monitor this and adjust your approach based on their needs and preferences.

By Providing Seamless Customer Support

Right from chatbots that lead to increased response time and reduced repetitive queries to decoding customer behavior and purchasing patterns, AI is the key to enabling real-time service for customer support platforms.

AI chatbots improve the customer experience by offering:

• Personalized conversation using stored data: AI chatbots can personalize their responses based on stored customer data, such as their purchase history and previous communication.

• Speedy and effective resolutions: AI chatbots can provide 24/7 support, personalized responses, faster response times, consistency, reduced errors, data collection and analysis, cost savings and increased customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy.

By Gathering Customer Feedback For Continuous Improvement

In today’s tech-driven world, traditional quantitative feedback-gathering methods are losing their importance. Reality demands companies leverage AI and machine learning to enhance their survey-forming and survey-analyzing efficiency.

While there are many ways to gather customer feedback via AI, the three most common approaches are as follows.

Three Ways To Gather Customer Feedback

1. Feedback tools: Use tools that empower AI to capture and analyze specialized vocabulary used by customers in answering feedback questions. The deep insights shared by AI can help marketers plan their customer satisfaction and retention strategies.

2. Automated forms: Automated forms are another effective way to gather customer feedback without disturbing the customer journey. The process can even be automated by telling the tools/AI processes when to shoot an email/SMS with the feedback form.

3. Customer surveys: While focus groups and personal interviews are still in vogue, customer surveys rolled out in bulk can work equally well. That is if AI is integrated to make sense of the answers, giving marketers insightful gleams into the customers’ needs and wants.

Conclusion

Digital transformation is key to maximizing customer experience in today's world. In the words of Mckinsey’s senior partner Tjark Freundt, “Effective customer-experience transformations require a clear vision and a customer-centric, ambitious articulation of goals.” This can be achieved with companies using AI-produced insights to see not just where customer problems are but what’s causing them and how they can be solved. And figures say that companies earning $1 billion a year earn an additional $700 million over three years by investing in customer experience.

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Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/05/31/digital-transformation-the-ultimate-customer-experience-overhaul/?sh=2001056d4254

Low-Code/No-Code: Empowering Citizen Developers

 The demand for software has never been higher in today’s fast-changing environment. Business leaders began 2021 with concerns about talent shortages, and retaining top technology talent is likely the No. 1 priority for many global organizations. Because many technology organizations are struggling to find adequate developers with so many legacy subject matter experts retiring, the enterprise low-code application platform (LCAP) market is growing rapidly. Low code is about applying automation (visual full-stack development and deploy to any touch point) to software delivery and is a natural evolution of rising abstraction levels in application development. TechTarget defines it as "a visual software development environment that allows citizen developers to drag and drop application components, connect them together and create a mobile or web app."

6 Ways AI Transforms How We Develop Software

 AI is transforming all business functions, and software development is no exception. Not only can machine learning techniques be used to accelerate the traditional software development lifecycle (SDLC), they present a completely new paradigm for inventing technology.

Data Version Control: The Enabler Of Data Engineering Best Practices

 Data is the backbone of every business organization today, and its importance will only grow in 2023. There have been a lot of discussions lately about adopting version control practices for data. Many engineers believe that data version control is the obvious next step that would transform data pipelines from something that organizations maintain to something they engineer—just like code.

Setting KPIs For Software Development Teams As An Engineering Leader

 It's important to track, measure and assess the performance of your software development teams as an engineering leader. This way, you ensure that you'll come up with the highest quality product. This approach will help your team become more efficient and also help you generate substantial benefits in the long run.

To get the best-intended results from your engineering teams, leaders need to determine some essential KPIs to answer critical questions: How fast is your team moving? And what can you do to improve developer satisfaction and efficiency?

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are just like a map that helps you to determine how far you've come since you started. Having the right KPIs linked to your organizational goals lets you derive your progress within a specific time frame.

You might ask what key performance indicators are and how they can benefit engineering leaders. Please read on to learn every aspect of KPIs. This article will also cover setting KPIs for the software development team as an engineering leader.

What KPIs Are And How To Set Them

KPIs are a set of metrics that allow organizations and businesses to obtain qualifiable measurements over time to accomplish a specific business objective. The prime aim of key performance indicators is to drive engineering teams toward achieving goals and deliver valuable insights to make data-driven decisions for business processes.

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Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2022/11/10/on-crm-what-are-the-most-popular-add-ons-for-crm-applications/?sh=3487e26650f6

Setting KPIs can help engineering teams in the following ways.

• Understand what needs to be improved.

• Define a strict process to ensure consistent progress.

• Minimize the time required to complete a specific development project.

Setting KPIs For Software Development Teams

As a software engineering leader, you can set KPIs in the following ways.

1. Understanding How KPIs Will Be Used

The first step in setting KPIs is understanding how these indicators will be used to track and monitor your team's performance. Additionally, they should be clearly understood by all your team members.

Before setting key performance indicators, discuss the criteria with your teams and equip them with the right tools, knowledge and skills.

2. Linking KPIs To Your Business Goals

Software engineering leaders often adopt vague performance indicators that have no substantial impact. To get the best results, you must link KPIs to your objectives to ensure your team is on the right track.

Additionally, in order to give them the motivation to carry out their duties, your engineering team should also be aware of the organization's main objective.

3. Determining The Effectiveness Of Your Selected KPIs

The next step is identifying your KPIs as "smart" enough to deliver the best outcomes. You can use the SMART formula to check their effectiveness.

• Specific: Your selected KPIs should be focused on a specific objective to help teams develop the finest-quality product.

• Measurable: The performance indicator you select must be measurable and benchmarked against a determined standard.

• Achievable: Your selected KPIs should be well defined and achievable.

• Relevant: As mentioned earlier, your selected KPI should be relevant to your organizational goals.

• Time-Bound: Your key performance indicators should be deliverable and achievable in a set time frame.

4. Auditing KPIs

Make necessary changes depending on your customers' demands and market conditions.

KPI Vs. OKR

Both of these are agile goal-setting methodologies and are recognized for the profitability, productivity and visibility they offer to companies, but they differ from each other in certain aspects.

Objectives and key results (OKRs) help team leaders set, track and measure time-bound business goals. In contrast, KPIs are specific measures of success that allow engineering leaders to track team performance.

They differ in the following ways:

• KPIs evaluate your team's success, whereas the prime aim of OKRs is to facilitate ambitious goal setting and alignment for businesses.

• KPIs are the larger tracking areas with an extended period, while OKRs typically have quarterly cycles.

• KPIs are static performance indicators, but OKRs are meant to be malleable.

Benefits Of KPIs For Software Development Teams

Clear and well-defined key performance indicators can improve the performance of software development teams in the following ways.

Measuring Progress

Implementing the right KPIs can help engineering leaders track the performance and progress of their teams. Performance indicators also help you determine if the processes and policies are working together to improve operations.

Managing Performance

Setting key performance indicators helps teams and individuals maintain accountability and simplify communication, fostering positive performance. KPIs also encourage transparency by tracking and managing the performance of each team member.

Analyzing Trends

Implementing KPIs allows engineering leaders to identify positive and negative performance trends. It helps you spot the areas of work that require improvement rapidly.

Some KPI Examples For Engineering Leaders

As an engineering leader, you should be aware of the following examples of KPIs.

Cycle Time: Cycle time is a significant metric that indicates how quickly code goes from a developer's workstation to production. Identifying these valuable performance indicators helps engineering leaders accelerate time to market by identifying process bottlenecks.

Measuring cycle time in engineering departments can also help teams innovate faster and improve the sense of ownership.

Project Timeline: This is another valuable key performance indicator that helps you identify how work focuses and volume is modified over time. It also allows leaders to determine how their teams perform compared to market trends.

The Bottom Line

Key performance indicators are essential metrics to track, manage and analyze the performance of software development teams. As an engineering leader, you are responsible for ensuring that the KPI you select is relevant, achievable and measurable in the specific time frame.

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Article resource:https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/05/01/setting-kpis-for-software-development-teams-as-an-engineering-leader/?sh=111f1ac27cef

Five Common Mistakes To Avoid After CRM Go-Live

 I recently came back from an Alaskan cruise. This was a completely new experience for me since I have never been on a cruise before. With beautiful glaciers to climb, rivers to raft and wildlife to watch, Alaska impressed me with its raw, unspoiled beauty. Putting aside whether I am a cruise person or not, one thing I found interesting is that every evening when we walked back into our room, there was a brochure on the bed with everything we needed to know about the following day.