Blue Yonder is committed to helping its customers face the unexpected. To provide insights into the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic and its impact on supply chains around the world, we are delivering a blog series to help anyone looking for support and advice. Our experts, who have spent years in the supply chain industry, share their insights.
A recent McKinsey & Company “COVID-19: Briefing Note”1 highlighted end-to-end supply chain actions to consider in the response to COVID-19 (slide 24). It only served to underscore Blue Yonder’s mission in supporting our supply chain customers and helping them ensure that supplies and products get to the people who need them, on time.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the unbelievable importance of having a risk-aware supply chain with visibility, resiliency and collaboration. Once things are stable – and supply chain leaders have taken a breath – they will begin to seek out risk-aware solutions. These solutions will help them assess their supply chain network, sourcing options, demand forecasting, supply management, and more to manage massive variability and to establish a more centralized risk function.
Some of the initial learnings from our Blue Yonder teams around the world, who have been working through the current disruptions, include:
- Supply Chain Network Visibility and Orchestration: To weather the crisis, customers will need real-time visibility into their supply chain for the tracking and provenance of products – this will be critical.
- Network Agility and Responsiveness: Customers will seek agility. The agility to make changes and understand the entire network impact, as well as customer impact.
- Sales and Operations Planning and Execution: Supply chain providers will need to provide quick scenario analysis, dynamic allocation of constrained inventory and improved collaboration for their customers.
- Adaption to Uncertainty: Machine learning (ML) is adept at gaining useful insight from what appears to be unpredictable variations like we are experiencing now. And once the disruptions go away, ML retains its learning to help smooth demand and supply.
- Dynamic Supply Chain Network Design: Supply chain providers need to help customers redefine risk and the location of the physical assets of their network.
During these tough times, it is important to stay positive and focus on getting through it. Together, we will get through this time and come out stronger on the other end.
To learn more about Blue Yonder’s solutions, visit BlueYonder.com.
