Conclusion
Observing what is happening in the world, given the developments in information and mobile technology, there is no doubt that we find ourselves in the era of ‘big data’. Inaddition, advanced computer power allows for the analysis of data in a much more focused, faster and bigger way than ever before. Organisations need to understand forces in their marketplace better and respond faster to changes in their environment in order to remain competitive. The proper use of any tools and methodology to assist in this is essential.
This article endeavours to provide an overview of new developments that show how companies in many sectors are making efforts to move from ‘gut-feel’ decision making to accurate, data-driven insight to achieve effective business decision making. Supply chain managers in the supply chain and logistics environment, in general, need to embrace these developments to remain efficient, effect and competitive.
Anticipating sales volumes, customer preferences for products and optimising work schedules are a few examples where proper analysis of big data has the power to help business succeed. Further extensive examples are covered in the article. It is critical that SCM and logistics decision makers take note of the fact that as data and analytics transform organisations, and the landscape within which they operate, it inevitably puts additional new demands on management. For any organisation to achieve what has been outlined in this paper it is necessary to take a whole range of steps and actions. These include aspects such as, inter alia, working across functional areas, data capturing, ensuring data integrity, data management, tools and techniques to perform the necessary analytics analysis, and the human resources capability required to achieve all of this.
Although all of these are of great importance, there has been no effort to address any of these in this article. Currently the leadership capacity in many organisations is still lacking and undermining efforts to respond fast and appropriately to these changes to create the appropriate management structures and roles (Brown, Court & Willmott 2013:78). However, supply chain managers should not be caught unawares, as changes are taking place and are inevitable.
The objective of this article was to expose supply chain managers to the growing importance of two trends that have the potential of changing and impacting the SCM industry in a big way. ‘Big data’ was defined and discussed, whilst analytics was outlined as it is currently defined and understood. A number of applications are discussed where ‘big data’ with analytics have been successfully implemented showing the benefits that can be derived through the adoption and drive towards data-driven decisions.
Finally, change is never easy in any environment. However, this article conveys in a concise manner the changes taking place in a very dynamic world. It is shown through a number of examples how these have impacted supply chains where the changes have been embraced. Big data is a reality and
using analytics to extract maximum value from the data has the potential to make a huge impact. Supply chain managers need to take note of the value of data-driven decisions. Only in this way will it be possible to continue to enhance the performance of supply chains, and through this for organisations to remain competitive.