Lacking foresight into what 2023 will bring, businesses nevertheless have the power to identify risks in the supply chain and prepare for the coming year. 

As a senior pharmaceutical executive recently said, "The problem I have with a control tower is that I can see that there's a problem, but it's like watching a car crash in slow motion: I can't do anything about it."

There’s still much to be done to enable operators to take full advantage of the immense amounts of data being collected at every moment of the day within distribution centers.

The digital twin of a warehouse — a real-time, 3D virtual representation of an actual facility down to the space, people, equipment and inventory — lets operators monitor activity, respond instantly to disruption and model future scenarios to improve performance.

Shipment and inventory visibility repeatedly tops the list of must-haves in surveys as freight shippers scramble to build resilience and agility into their supply chains.

The administration of cell and gene therapies has grown in recent years thanks to cost reductions, to the benefit of many more patients. The supply chain for cell and gene therapies will continue to escalate, requiring the technology to be available at scale.

It's vitally important for companies to understand every touchpoint in their supply chains and third-party relationships, to ensure they don’t link to transnational criminal organizations trafficking in war materials or money laundering.

Returns have taken center stage in the supply chain over the last few years, but it’s clear merchants and carriers still don’t know the best approach to optimizing them. For those managing returns the same way they did pre-pandemic, fixing this process may seem too complex or disruptive

The partnership is part of a race among e-commerce platforms to build out logistics and fulfillment capabilities that can compete with retail behemoths such as Amazon.

Supply chain partners have never had greater access to tools for data collection and analysis than they do now, but many are failing to take full advantage of these resources.