Each quarter, Blue Yonder shares insights shaped by its industry expertise, conversations with customers, and trends that are top of mind for businesses.

Here are the trends our Blue Yonder Industry Strategy team sees for the upcoming quarter:

Supply Chain and Technology

  • Supply chains will remain volatile with escalating disruptions as a result of extreme weather effects and unrest across the globe. This will continue to put pressure on international trade routes and complicate logistics thus raising the importance of visibility across the entire supply chain network and continued risk mitigation through diversification strategies.
  • Artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities continue to improve at a rapid rate and will remain a focus in the supply chain with companies looking to drive efficiencies, reduce risk and take advantage of otherwise hidden opportunities.
  • Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) regulations are driving sustainability investments with a focus on tracking, excess inventory and resource utilization.
  • Rising operational costs (labor, materials, insurance and cybersecurity) continue to put more focus on overall supply chain costs and efficiencies.

Retail

  • Retailers will continue to rethink how to leverage their store base, making the store experience differentiated or else downsize as online sales continue to grow.
  • Consumers expectations of the online and omni-channel experiences will drive investment in fulfillment optimization and supply chain networks investments focused on the last mile. Metrics like delivery against estimated delivery date and the promise to the customer and the cost to serve the consumer per unit will become goals outside of just the supply chain.

Logistics

  • Labor shortages will remain an issue in logistics and transportation with many supply chain executives looking to automation for relief. This will increase the number of robots used and heighten the need to manage operations across multiple robotics vendors in a single facility.
  • Stabilization in the freight/trucking and warehousing market is a big boon for the logistics industry. Logistics service providers (LSPs), carriers and freight forwarders are aggressively continuing their investments in technology infrastructure.

Manufacturing

  • Memory semiconductors, because of their pervasive use across electronics, automotive and industrial manufacturing segments, are often considered the bellwether of overall consumer sentiment. Publicly available financial data suggests that demand and pricing for such semiconductor devices is rising and remains strong after a challenging 2023 – an optimistic signal for manufacturing-centric businesses across the board.
  • Once bitten twice shy.  Interest in real-time visibility across upstream tiers of supply remains high despite softening demand in the post-pandemic era in general. Effective supplier collaboration across supply chain networks remains high on the priority list for manufacturers dealing with multiple tiers of supply.

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