A spirited fashion aficionado and an avid traveller, Akhil Duggar Jain, represents the 4th generation in one of the most respected family run business house based out of Ludhiana known for decades in the hosiery and retail industry. A qualified fashion designer from the prestigious NIFT, New Delhi, Jain combines over 8 years of designing, marketing and business development experience. He is the brainchild behind the branding and positioning of Madame both nationally and internationally. As also the company’s Creative Director- he is responsible for deploying company’s strategic vision and building the Madame brand name. A fiery instinct & a burning passion is what describes him the best. He always follows his own approach which makes him a fascinating PR face of the organization.
Fast-progressing technology has helped the industries and businesses in achieving higher efficiency and cutting back losses. As we have seen in the past, the adoption of fresh technological systems has helped the industries in providing a better service to the customer while also improving internal systems and mechanisms.
Similarly, the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digitalization in supply chain management is now propelling the industry, especially retail and manufacturing industry, into a new era of highly optimized services and personalized approach for the customers.
AI, a pathbreaking technology, which nearly obliterates any errors arising out of human-intervention, is further helping the businesses in ensuring better productivity, low costs, and higher output. Along with this, the AI is also helping in better capacity building, which in turn, helps in delivering better quality products and services to the customers.
Digitization and Supply Chain 4.0
In today’s world, with increased uncertainty due to Covid-19 pandemic and a growing demand for online shopping, the need for digitization and the supply chain has increased manifold.
Digitization helps in creating a supply chain network which is transparent from end-to-end, which means that all the stakeholders involved in the movement of the product from its inception point to the final customer, are aware what’s happening at each step.
The technology also helps in ensuring the customer and businesses alike are aware of any disruptions in the supply chain as and when it happens. It also helps in correcting the problem immediately.
The combination of digitization with AI further creates a system where the computers can quickly provide solution to these errors and ensure that a lot of time, that could have been spent in locating the source of the problem and then solving it, is saved.
Thus, the two major advantages of integrating digitization and AI within the supply chain are that of cost and time. Additionally, the introduction of robots within the system further helps in making the system highly precise.
The computer-operated robots can carry out each task while being absolutely synchronized with the central system. This is a revolutionary technology which helps in managing large inventories.
Big data and personalized experience
The digitization of supply chain also enables the businesses and industry in optimizing their services to provide a more personalized experience for the customers. This can be done using data which is generated throughout the process.
This data can help the businesses in learning the customer trends and expectations much better, and in real-time. This means that the supply chains and manufacturing capabilities can be optimized and changed according to customer preferences.
For example, a higher demand for a particular product can be traced easily with the help of the data generated in the supply chain. Also, particular geographical locations from where the most demand is being generated can also be traced.
This way, the businesses can optimize their services to reach out to the customers with the right product without a huge delay. Thereby, helping both the business and the customers.
Future of logistics
With the supply chains growing bigger in size and the customer base becoming more diverse geographically, the need to integrate AI and digitization in the systems is continuously increasing.
According to McKinsey Digital, AI-powered forecasting can reduce errors by 30 to 50% in supply chain networks. The improved accuracy leads up to a 65% reduction in lost sales due to inventory out-of-stock situations and warehousing costs decrease around 10 to 40%.
Thus, for businesses that are looking to grow and expand while staying relevant in today’s rapidly changing world, these new-age technologies are a must to be adopted.