8 TECH OUTLOOKDecember - JanuaryIN MY OPINIONBy Kalyan Sakthivelayutham, VP IT, DHL Supply ChainToday's global supply chain industry is undergoing a most disruptive era, yet presented with vast opportunities for transformation. Digitalization is being the backbone and the driving force for embracing the Supply Chain 4.0 transformation. This digitalization culture opens up the doors for businesses to reach their customers at an individualized fashion, say B2I (Business to Individual), which was not prevailed even a decade ago. Personalization is the new norm demanded by the customers, both individuals and enterprises. Once I quoted the following statement during my speech at The Ohio State University's Leading ThroughExcellence Summit as part of their Center for Operational Excellence, "It's not a question of "if" the digitization revolution is going to transform the future of the supply chain industry. It's a question of how."Though logistics has existed for centuries, it has rarely made headlines, and the great innovation is often regarded as the shipping container in the 1950s. Now, innovations and digitalization coupled with globalization are pushing the logistics and supply chain industry to the frontier. A myriad inflow of venture capital funding especially for the startups evidences the reality of focus on logistics industry. "All businesses are interested in unlocking the strategic value in their supply chain. However, those that acknowledge the supply chain as a strategic asset achieve 70 percent higher performance on average," according to a global supply chain survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).Customers are demanding ever, rightfully more, and the real-time visibility of their products and parts is becoming a requirement rather than a nice-to-have feature for their supply chain divisions and supply chain partners. The availability of traditional lead times and reaction times for logistics are constantly shrinking, which in-turn driving the supply chain lifecycle to be smarter, faster, and more customer centric. To put that in to a perspective for the next five years horizon, a few key innovative trends shaping the logistics industry include digital work, green energy logistics, logistics marketplace, omni-channel logistics, bid data analytics, cloud logistics, Internet of Things (IoT), and robotics & automation. To expand the horizon beyond five years horizon, the watch-out list includes Supergrid Logistics, 3D Printing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Self-driving Vehicles. Still there is handful of other trends to be mindful of including Batch Size One, Connected Life, Fair & Responsible Logistics, Fresh Chain, Sharing Economy, Augmented Reality, Blockchain, and Unmanned Arial Vehicle. Digital Work: As I'm being part of the global logistics leader organization, which has more than 500,000 including temporary and seasonal workers, I see the digital work as a fundamental shift in the human resource paradigm. Our aging population, the raise of the millennials workforce, and Supply Chain 4.0 ­ Unlocking Opportunities through Digitalization and InnovationKalyan Sakthivelayutham
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