SOLUTIONS OFFERED
SUPPLY CHAIN Process improvement 54% Order management 48% EDI 47% Supply chain control tower 39% Modeling, forecasting, predictive analytics 38% Supplier, vendor management 36% Strategic sourcing 24% Demand management 23% Global trade management 21% Enterprise resource planning 17% Sales & operations planning 16% Remote workforce enablement 14% Customer experience/relationship 13% Security (risk management, compliance) 12% Product lifecycle management 11%
LOGISTICS Optimization 71% Routing & scheduling 53% TMS 50% Auditing, claims, freight payment 44% Load planning 43% Rate & bid 42% Inventory management 41%
Capacity solutions 37% Reverse logistics 32% Procurement 30% WMS 28%
Labor management 21% Asset management 20% Wireless, mobile 19% YMS 19% Container, chassis management 16% RFID 11%
Facing both a tight labor market and higher costs, companies these days seek every opportunity to operate more eciently. That makes process improvement a top priority. Fifty-four percent of survey respondents oer solutions to meet that need. Many vendors also provide solutions for order management (48%), electronic data interchange (47%), supply chain control tower operations (39%), modeling, forecasting, and predictive analytics (38%), and supplier or vendor management (36%).
For the same reasons companies turn to technology to gain overall eciencies, they also seek solutions to fine-tune their logistics operations. That makes logistics optimization a perennial leader among solutions oered by companies in our survey. Pre-pandemic, in 2019, 72% of respondents said they oered optimization solutions. This year, the number was nearly the same, 71%. Some other popular solutions have fallen slightly in numbers across the pandemic era, although they remain at the top of the list. For example, in 2019, 60% of respondents said they oered solutions for routing and scheduling, while in 2023 that number is 53%. Similarly, 61% of vendors oered transportation management systems (TMS) in 2019, while in 2023 just half of vendors oer such systems. One category—warehouse management systems (WMS)—has seen a slight uptick since before the advent of COVID-19 (23% in 2019 vs. 28% in 2023).
58 Inbound Logistics • April 2023
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