The supply chain industry is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by technological advancements and evolving market demands. Germany's SAP was the leading supply chain management software supplier with revenue of around 4.4 billion U.S. dollars. According to a report by Grand View Research, the supply chain tech market size is as follows:
- Market size value in 2023 - USD 23.26 billion
- Revenue Forecast in 2030 - USD 48.60 billion
- Growth rate - CAGR of 11.2% from 2024 to 2030
As we are close to move into 2025, various technologies are reshaping how businesses manage their supply chains, from improving efficiency to enhancing transparency and sustainability.
Supply chain technology encompasses a range of digital tools and solutions designed to optimize and streamline the various processes involved in supply chain management. These technologies include software platforms for logistics management, tools for inventory optimization, and innovative solutions leveraging AI, IoT, and blockchain. By integrating these technologies, companies can achieve greater visibility, efficiency, and agility in their supply chains.
The global supply chain tech market is witnessing robust growth, with North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific leading the charge. According to a report by Allied Market Research, the supply chain analytics market alone is expected to reach $10.7 billion by 2025, highlighting the increasing reliance on data-driven decision-making in supply chain operations.
As we look ahead to 2024, several key trends are set to dominate the supply chain tech landscape. These trends reflect the industry's ongoing efforts to leverage technology for enhanced efficiency, resilience, and sustainability.
What It Is: AI and machine learning algorithms analyze vast amounts of data to optimize supply chain operations.
Why Needed: AI enhances demand forecasting, inventory management, and logistics planning.
Regional Trends: Strong adoption in North America and Europe, with growing interest in Asia-Pacific.
Example: IBM's Watson Supply Chain utilizes AI to predict disruptions and recommend mitigation strategies.
What It Is: Blockchain provides a decentralized and secure ledger for recording transactions across the supply chain.
Why Needed: It enhances transparency, traceability, and security in supply chain operations.
Regional Trends: Significant adoption in North America and Europe, with increasing interest in Asia-Pacific.
Example: IBM Food Trust uses blockchain to trace the journey of food products from farm to table, ensuring safety and authenticity.
What It Is: IoT involves interconnected devices that collect and transmit data in real time.
Why Needed: IoT enhances visibility and monitoring across the supply chain, improving efficiency and reducing risks.
Regional Trends: High adoption in North America and Europe, with rapid growth in Asia-Pacific.
Example: Maersk's Remote Container Management system uses IoT to monitor the temperature and humidity of containers in real time.
What It Is: Big data analytics involves processing large volumes of data to uncover insights and trends.
Why Needed: It improves decision-making, demand forecasting, and risk management.
Regional Trends: Strong presence in North America and Europe, with growing adoption in Asia-Pacific.
Example: SAP's Integrated Business Planning solution leverages big data analytics to enhance supply chain planning and execution.
What It Is: Autonomous vehicles and drones are used for transportation and delivery within the supply chain.
Why Needed: They increase efficiency, reduce labor costs, and enhance last-mile delivery.
Regional Trends: Leading adoption in North America and Europe, with emerging interest in Asia-Pacific.
Example: Amazon's Prime Air uses drones for fast and efficient delivery of packages.
Supply chain technology is constantly evolving to meet the demands of modern businesses. Here are some key technologies in supply chain tech, along with their pros and cons:
Pros:
Cons:
Pros:
Cons:
Pros:
Cons:
Pros:
Cons:
Introduction: IBM has been at the forefront of supply chain tech innovation, leveraging AI to enhance efficiency and resilience.
Journey and Technological Advancements: IBM's Watson Supply Chain uses AI to analyze data and predict disruptions, enabling proactive decision-making.
Product Strategy and Problem Solving: IBM focuses on providing integrated solutions that enhance visibility and efficiency across the supply chain.
Go-to-Market Strategy and Business Model: IBM's GTM strategy includes partnerships with leading supply chain companies and a strong focus on digital marketing.
Customer-Centric Marketing and Innovation: IBM uses customer success stories and case studies to highlight the benefits of its solutions.
Current Customer Base and Geographic Reach: IBM's supply chain solutions are used by companies globally, with a strong presence in North America and Europe.
Introduction:
Maersk, a global leader in logistics, has integrated IoT to enhance visibility and efficiency in its operations.
Journey and Technological Advancements: Maersk's Remote Container Management system uses IoT to monitor containers in real time.
Product Strategy and Problem Solving: Maersk focuses on providing innovative logistics solutions that enhance efficiency and reduce risks.
Go-to-Market Strategy and Business Model: Maersk's GTM strategy includes strategic partnerships and a strong focus on digital marketing.
Customer-Centric Marketing and Innovation: Maersk uses customer success stories and case studies to highlight the benefits of its solutions.
Current Customer Base and Geographic Reach: Maersk's logistics solutions are used by companies globally, with a strong presence in North America and Europe.
Shorter Loop helps supply chain tech companies navigate these trends through advanced end to end product management software. Their AI-powered platform facilitates agile roadmaps, continuous discovery of products, solutions and markets through experimentations, business modelling, digital whiteboarding, and streamlined product management, making it one of the top product management software solutions in the market globally.
Before diving into the case study, let's look at what some of Shorter Loop's customers have to say:
Shorter Loop Global Customer Testimonials:
Customer Reviews: SourceForge
About the Company
One of the leading global supply chain tech companies, previously utilizing Microsoft Excel and MS Office for product management, faced numerous challenges in their efforts to streamline product management and enhance team collaboration.
Know Shorter Loop Better
Tools they were using before buying Shorter Loop: MS Excel, Google Sheets
Region: Global (India and USA)
Industry: Supply Chain Tech
Challenges
Solutions with Shorter Loop
Implementing Shorter Loop provided the company with comprehensive solutions that addressed their challenges effectively:
Crafting Holistic Roadmaps
Enhanced Collaboration and Integration
Tight Integration with Jira
Metrics Dashboard:
Key Impact:
The company struggled with uncoordinated product management efforts, poor team collaboration, and ineffective communication between various departments such as product, development, design, leadership, marketing, and sales.
Shorter Loop provided a streamlined solution that allowed for a holistic roadmap tying business objectives and customer metrics in one page, facilitating better alignment across departments.
Different departments can see each other’s roadmaps and align their efforts with the overarching business objectives and customer needs. This fosters better collaboration and strategic planning.
The seamless integration allows for real-time synchronization between Jira and Shorter Loop, ensuring that status updates and work items are consistently reflected across both platforms.
Team collaboration improved by 50%, with easier creation of roadmaps, a straightforward and clean UX requiring no training, and better alignment on business objectives.
Developers can see how their work ties into customer-centric metrics and business metrics, including customer feedback, brainstorming activities, and overall product vision and OKRs.
The product metrics dashboard provided comprehensive insights into the customer journey before, during, and after launch, helping to track feature usage, CSAT, website visits, customer acquisition, retention, engagement, installations, NPS, and customer effort score.
Shorter Loop makes it easy to create roadmaps directly from the backlog, allowing for efficient planning and prioritization of work items.
Teams can choose roadmap intervals based on their requirements, such as sprint-based, monthly, quarterly, or now-next-later views.
Leadership can see a summary view (team-wise and key work item-wise epics), while engineering and other teams can access detailed views showing the why behind each task.
By enabling continuous discovery, realistic product creation was accelerated, helping the company deliver a market-fit MVP more efficiently.
Improved collaboration, streamlined communication, efficient roadmap planning, real-time Jira synchronization, and comprehensive product metrics tracking.
Shorter Loop features a clean, user-friendly UX that requires no training, making it easy to integrate into existing workflows.
Yes, Shorter Loop ties business objectives and customer metrics into one cohesive roadmap, aiding in strategic planning and execution.
By providing detailed insights into customer journeys and enabling better product management, Shorter Loop helps improve customer satisfaction scores (CSAT).