COVID-19's serious economic consequences will be felt for years to come. Supply chain operations and business operations have been severely disrupted by disruptions in logistics.
Trade lanes, commodities, and modes of transport have all experienced different levels of disruption, but in the post-COVID world, we can be certain that logistics will look very different.
Logistics managers realized they needed to reevaluate supply chain management after the crisis.
Globalization To Regionalization: Shortening Supply Chains
COVID-19 demonstrated how the world's supply chain was overly stretched, making it vulnerable to disruption at any point, with a broken link affecting all of the business' activities.
Increasing resilience and avoiding this problem will require a more agile and shortened supply chain in a post-COVID world. Since suppliers were unavailable during the pandemic, companies looked to local supply chains for the augmentation of shipments from overseas.
In a post-COVID world, logistics players i.e., 3pl mississauga will have to ask their existing suppliers to handle more product lines and volumes.
Developing their own internal sourcing and delivery options will be required in order to create a flexible supply chain and reduce dependencies. There is already evidence that logistics hubs are reemerging at the regional level.
Pharma companies in Europe receive 80% of their components from India and China, due to global sourcing and imports. Changing government procurement policies post-COVID will likely result in multi-level sourcing.
Retail Supply Chain Reimagining
Retailers were hurting before the Coronavirus pandemic and supply chain disruption. Now the retail supply chain is in the midst of a reimagination, and inefficiencies are causing significant inventory management woes across the industry. More than ever before, retailers must get the right merchandise to the right customer, at the right store, at the right time, and can not afford delays.
To ensure supply chains are running at peak performance and vital inventory is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there, smart retailers are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence across their supply chains.
Savvy retailers merchants, warehouse operators, and fulfillment centers are increasingly turning to integrated digital solutions to meet these needs and supercharge the customer experience. All tools are needed for businesses and logistics companies to align within and beyond the retail sector.
Changing Profiles
It was almost impossible for businesses to conduct their daily operations during the early stages of the pandemic. New regulations were quickly enacted, resulting in serious disruptions to supply chains.
In order to diversify and move their supply chain closer to home as the economic recovery continues, some companies are looking at alternative countries to China for their supply chains, such as Mexico.
While people in lockdown have turned to the internet to make purchases, the business-to-consumer market has exploded. In addition to rising volumes, consumers ordered even the largest purchases online, with the profile of goods being shipped changing.
Amidst the demand for logistics, companies expanded their operations to seven days a week and made substantial investments in e-commerce, talent, and assets to meet the demands.
Operational Optimization In All Aspects
It is now even more imperative for companies to find efficient and effective ways to increase delivery density and lower costs.
Companies of every type must optimize their operations across the entire logistics landscape - and technology and data play a crucial role in doing so. Collecting and sharing data from point of origin to final destination is critical for gaining greater visibility into the supply chain.
Operations and planning systems of logistics firms, sensors installed in warehouses, on pallets during transit, as well as telematics in ships and trucks, can provide such data.
The Use Of Sensors
Logistics companies have developed effective communications methods for advising customers about delivery schedule changes and arrival times. By using data, we can improve routes even more.
A logistics company can predict disruptions in real-time by gaining complete visibility of packages at every stage - and by integrating external data sources (like traffic or weather, for instance) with machine learning, routes can be modified in real-time.
