Logistics and Supply Chain Technology Report 2021

中国电信（欧洲）有限公司 C h i n a T e l e c o m ( E u r o p e ) L t d .

In addition, the growing suite of tools available for warehouse management has attracted investment from 48% of the businesses we surveyed. Ranging from palletising solutions that yield improved throughput and packing efficiency to the use of blockchain technologies (11%) for smart contract deployment, warehouse management remains a key area for investment with efficiency gains still to be realised across the outbound logistics process. This was also supplemented by increased investment in inventory management and related ERP solutions (43%). 48% of businesses we surveyed also informed us that they would be focusing upon investing in improved forecasting capabilities. Predictive analytics, enabled by cloud technology as well as the need for better demand estimation and supply level tracking that has emerged over a long 18 months filled with uncertainty over demand patterns. These fluctuating patterns have been further exacerbated by shutdowns across APAC due to COVID-19 surges, exponentially increasing production times on labor-intensive products as workers isolate. Businesses have had to be nimble in navigating these changing circumstances, though some have lacked the necessary visibility into their operations to make swift changes. 47% of respondents cited improving visibility as an area for investment over the next 12 months, coupling it with continued investment in IoT (13%) to support the drive for greater transparency. Greater connectivity will also be enabled by 5G, but investment in the still nascent technology is relatively low, with just 8% of respondents earmarking it for spending. With businesses continuing to lay the ground for greater visibility, real-time monitoring and analysis, facilitated by connected IoT devices, data storage and management tools become increasingly valuable components of the modern logistics enterprise. The use of smart devices generates large amounts of data, and logistics businesses across the world are increasingly turning to cloud providers to both store and manage their output. However, though 25% of businesses we surveyed told us that they were eyeing up greater investment in cloud technologies, a third of our respondents (33%) revealed that movements on this front are likely stifled by their current data pipeline, facing the need to first invest in data interchange solutions to continue working with legacy solutions and suppliers before moving entirely to the cloud.