The complexity of global supply chains, increasing costs, explosion in order and delivery channels, rising customer expectations and new consumer behaviour have all contributed to the growing challenges faced by organisations when it comes to order fulfilment operations.
Capgemini, a provider of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, in partnership with Oracle, has announced the findings of its global supply chain and logistics management study ‘From Customer Orders through Fulfilment: Challenges in Manufacturing, High Tech, and Retail’.
The study surveyed almost 600 top supply chain executives in manufacturing, high-tech and retail businesses worldwide to analyse common fulfilment challenges and areas in need of improvement.
The research reveals that with increasing risk and system complexity, order fulfilment processes are becoming more intricate and inventory management and delivery performance is slipping. Only one in three manufacturers is happy with their order promising, and 50 per cent of respondents say exception handling needs improvement. As a result, customer satisfaction and retention are put at risk and businesses are forced to allocate additional spending on resources to address the situation, which, coupled with rising prices of raw materials and transport costs, are a growing threat to businesses’ bottom line.
Key conclusions from the report show:
Key challenges face manufacturing, high-tech and retail companies including maintaining customer satisfaction (44 per cent of respondents), order management complexity (42 per cent), and inaccurate order promise dates (39 per cent). Companies need adequate multi-channel management systems – almost nine out of ten manufacturers (86 per cent) reported their customers are ordering through multiple channels (with on average 3.1 order-taking channels including e-commerce, call centres and EDI), and this trend is on the rise – with 45 per cent of respondents saying that multi-channel ordering has risen by 45 per cent in the last year. The need for a platform that can provide consistent fulfilment process control regardless of the ordering or fulfilment channel used is necessary. Outsourcing among manufacturers is expected to continue to rise, particularly in transportation, production and warehousing – just over one-third of respondents expect to increase outsourcing of production and warehousing tasks, while 46 per cent will subcontract more transportation and logistics activities. Increasing consolidation of the market – one-half of manufacturers (47 per cent) surveyed have either been acquired by or have purchased another company in the last five years, and 56 per cent report the merging onto a single ERP system. Costs are increasing across all sectors, and are up 76 per cent on transportation, 70 per cent on raw materials, 65 per cent for labour-related costs and 41 per cent on warehousing. In the retail sector companies report costs associated with fulfilment have risen by 78 per cent. Delivery delays and resultant expediting is the largest driver of fulfilment costs. But at the same time order cycle times are reduced: for example, in manufacturing the period from order receipt to the outgoing shipment to the customer has contracted for 43 per cent companies surveyed. In terms of future challenges, generally accurately promising dates based on fulfilment planning lead times was the top issue overall. Among retailers, the top issue was having visibility to planned inventories to commit. Among hi-tech firms, 58 per cent of respondents say the top future challenge will be data accuracy, while 46 per cent say this will be the timeliness of data.
Ben Pivar, senior vice president and head of North America Supply Chain Technologies at Capgemini said: “It’s clear that given the growth of multi-channel complexities, it’s time for industries to consider the impacts that these requirements place on their businesses.
“Manufacturers should consider following retailers in embracing the new multi-channel reality by evaluating up-sell and cross-sell opportunities across product lines to create a consistent and profitable customer experience across all channels. In order to truly make this work, manufacturers need to consider how to integrate multi-channel requirements throughout their supply chain operations.”
Jennifer Sherman, senior director of applications strategy at Oracle said: “Value chain integration is a long-term trend and there is an urgent need for more collaborative planning and execution.
“The threats of volatility and change in the marketplace can be mitigated by the existence of an agile and scalable supply chain platform. Businesses need to consider investing in a technology platform to create a centralised view and single face to the customer and to ease the adoption of new business processes without mandating a replacement of existing supply chain execution systems.”
