Generix Group, a provider of SaaS solutions for the collaborative supply chain, today released the results of its latest analysis of the level of real-time visibility of companies in southern Europe, which includes Portugal, Spain, France and Italy. The data from the study carried out during the third quarter of 2019 shows that visibility with carriers is more developed in the Iberian market compared to the other countries, and it is in Portugal that investments in this area are most important: 64 per cent of the companies surveyed estimate that they will have visibility of between 75 and 100 per cent in the next three years.
The globalisation of trade, the launch of new technologies and the rise of e-commerce have completely changed supply chain operations. Today they are more complex and require perfect interconnection between each process or player in the supply chain.
The challenges of real-time visibility
In Italy (45%), Spain (36%) and Portugal (28%), real-time visibility must first and foremost meet the demands of the end customer in order to maximise customer loyalty. The arrival of Amazon, the world leader in e-commerce, has favoured the tracking of orders and stocks, and influenced the behaviour of consumers who are increasingly demanding transparency in their purchasing processes. To meet this challenge, Portuguese companies are starting to implement tracking solutions that alert consumers in real time to the status of their order. Nothing compared to Italy and Spain, where the level of demand from end customers has led to a significant increase in the complexity of logistics chains. It’s only in the second phase that companies in southern Europe see visibility as an opportunity to offer additional services (tracking, change of delivery location, returns).
On the other hand, for Portuguese companies (24 per cent), the main challenge related to customer satisfaction is maintaining an impeccable quality of service thanks to perfect control of the supply chain.
The growth of online sales has increased the number of orders for individual products, which has generated the need for visibility of operations in order to improve the process. In Portugal, supply chain operations are still managed manually, which hinders the digitalisation process and the implementation of new solutions.
Stock Reliability
In the omnichannel era, the concept of inventory has evolved substantially to offer consumers product delivery solutions, such as Click&Collect in shop. However, the results of the study highlight how much remains to be done to obtain a 360° view of stocks and improve the reliability of information.
In Portugal, 59 per cent of companies report having good or excellent visibility of available stock in the warehouse compared to 33 per cent at the point of sale. This difference is mainly explained by the fact that, historically, the warehouse’s main function has been to store and manage incoming and outgoing goods. These companies are already equipped with solutions (WMS), which allow them to have a reliable view of stocks, whereas front-of-store tools, on the other hand, are not designed for stock management.
