Published November 10, 2016
Jim Tompkins, CEO, Tompkins International has just released his newest thought leadership video Supply Chain Revolutions: Responding to Digital Disruptionsalong with The Survival Guide to Digital Disruptions white paper. Tompkins continues to shape and grow the supply chain industry through innovative ideas, insight, and intelligence.
Throughout the video Tompkins explains the importance of understanding how digital disruptions are affecting companies supply chains. Also, explained is what needs to take place to respond to these disruptions. With the use of graphics, quotes, data, and proven results, Tompkins makes it clear why businesses must become digitally capable in order to achieve profitability.
Tompkins addresses how humans have evolved over a long period of time and the implications this has on us today. First, measured in thousands of years during the agricultural era, to hundreds of years during the industrial era, and finally to tens of years during the digital era. With today’s technology advances humans are running to stay current. Since the year 2000 computing has gone from, calculations and doing mathematics, to communications and connecting people, in ways we could only have imagined 15 years ago. The digital era has accelerated the pace of life, the pace of innovation, and the growth of the digital economy and digital commerce.
The digital economy is defined as the far reaching expansion of technologies into businesses and services. The new economy of how people, businesses, and governments work, interact, and prosper has changed. “The term ‘Digital Economy’ was coined in Don Tapscott‘s 1995 best-seller The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence. The Digital Economy was among the first books to show how the Internet would change the way we do business,” Wikipedia.
Digital commerce is defined as a subset of the digital economy that changes the economics of demand and / or supply. It encompasses the entire product and service life cycle and impacts all trading partners of global supply chains, not just buying and selling. Companies must have the ability to market, sell, and serve through digital means.
A Brief History of the Digital Era:
1930’s-1950’s – Rise of service sector, invention of computers.
1950’s-1990’s – Use of computers for computing.
2000-today – Use of computers for communicating.
There are a number of companies that have used digital means to separate themselves from other companies. The greatest disruptor of them all is Amazon. Amazon is capturing market share, growing 30% a year in the U.S., and rapidly expanding its network for direct to customer fulfillment. Amazon is doing this with a focus on harnessing the growth in digital communications and data. Companies in many industries are feeling the impact of Amazon on their business and are struggling for a solution to keep pace. Amazon has quickly gone from the “Everything Store” to the “Everything Company.”
Digital disruptions are taking place in all industries and in all locations. We are all facing challenges in the Digital Age. Digital is a global phenomenon. Countries such as, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, U.S., Korea, New Zealand, and Ireland are leading the way with the development and momentum in the use of digital technologies. Countries gaining momentum in the use of digital include: India, China, Brazil, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico, and South Africa. Your competition can come from anywhere at any time. “Americans using digital means for commerce include 72% of all American adults, 89% of all American college graduates, and 94% of all American high household incomes,” Pew Research Center. The focus is on the young and around urban population centers.
Due to the continued disruptions, a company’s supply chain must be capable of responding to competitors digital capabilities in the Digital Age. Now is the time for you to have a supply chain revolution, responding to these disruptions.
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