Data and analytics are indispensable to companies positioning for future leadership.
This demand for data-driven insights is largely why the market for supply chain big data analytics is expected to grow by a combined annual growth rate of 17.3 percent through 2024, according to a new report by ResearchandMarkets.com.
With virtually all digitally enabled companies amassing vast quantities of data today, the winners—especially those in apparel and retail—will be the businesses that can best extract competitive insights from these troves of information.
Increasingly complex supply chains are prompting companies to invest in analytics to curb fraud and abuses, Deloitte reported in 2017. Thirty-five percent of companies leveraged analytics to trim waste, abuse and third-party fraud in their supply chains in 2017, up from 27.2 percent in 2014.
Other common challenges within supply chains include escalating fuel costs, costly shipment delays, unpredictable suppliers and inconsistent product quality and perhaps the most important factor—demanding, high-expectations customers.
Global analytics and advisory firm Quantzig described how a German sports brand deployed an analytics solution and in doing so enhanced its supply chain flexibility while reducing distribution costs by $8 million. Quantzig also noted how analytics for merchandising is now a “non-negotiable” for retailers tasked with creating localized and attribute-based assortments to better cater to myriad customer segments and demographics.
The numbers bear out the case for analytics in the retail supply chain. ResearchandMarkets.com points to a Softweb Solution survey describing how retailers that deploy predictive analytics gained a 73 percent increase in sales versus those without such platforms. By analyzing customer data, retailers can better plan for future demand. In fact, the retail industry has taken the largest share of the global market for data analytics, the research company said.
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Logility, a provider of solutions for retail planning and supply chain optimization, is going beyond analytics by incorporating advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning into its software platforms.
“Logility is using advances in AI and machine learning to eliminate, automate and augment current processes to help our customers focus on strategic activities that enable them to be more successful every day,” Logility’s EVP of research and development Mark Balte said. “We are finding new and practical methods to incorporate AI and machine learning to drive innovation and help our customers automate their planning process and we are working on additional innovative ways to apply AI in the future.”