Sep 28, 2020|

Five Key Takeaways from JD’s Supply Chain Technology Seminars

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by Yuchuan Wang

Digital transformation of supply chain is helping every single enterprise build agility.

Last week, JD Logistics held supply chain seminars in Shanghai and Guangzhou, in which the logistics giant invited professionals and experts from supply chain, logistics, consulting, manufacturing, FMCG and other industries to discuss future trends in the supply chain industry, the application and innovation of advanced technologies and the potential of digital supply chain.

Here are five key takeaways from the workshops:

 

Technology provides the biggest opportunity for supply chain reformation

“Logistics is reforming from a single mode of transportation, intensive integration and ‘networking’ to being supply chain-based. This is the biggest opportunity for supply chain reformation in the next 10 years in China,” said Bing Fu, head of strategy at JD Logistics in his opening keynote.

Fu pointed out that over the past decade, front-end retail costs of logistics and express delivery in China have dropped significantly. China’s express and transportation fees are some of the lowest in the world. But the current development model has encountered bottlenecks with enterprise supply chain costs related supply, manufacture and circulation not decreasing in step. In this circumstance, JD Logistics will leverage technology to build an agile supply chain, which will connect more resources in one place to help clients optimize their enterprise supply chain.

 

Bing Fu, head of strategy at JD Logistics

 

Digitized supply chain makes enterprise management more flexible

“The current efficiency of enterprise supply chain and level of supply chain management are lagging behind,” said Shu Lou, managing director at Accenture Strategy & Consulting. Consumers will not stop their demands because of the limitations at the enterprise supply chain level. On the contrary, they expect more customized services, more choices and higher reliability.

 

A small step for intelligent algorithms, a big step for enterprise decision-making

Ping Ding, Director for Solutions at LLamasoft, a leading provider of enterprise supply chain design and decision-making solutions, said that it is important for enterprises to use digital “sand table deduction” to solve problems. Even if the accuracy rate is only improved by 1% through algorithm optimization, enterprises can benefit a lot. AI makes traditional supply chain decision-making more accurate and efficient.

 

“Let the right people do the right things”

Thanks to Unilever’s digital deployment, its Hefei (capital of Anhui province) factory has recently been recognized as an ‘Advanced Fourth Industrial Revolution Lighthouse’ by the World Economic Forum. Fangjun Han, supply chain vice president of Unilever’s North China region explained that the company handed over its supply chain network optimization to JD Logistics and LLamasoft to have the “right people do the right things”. She also revealed that Unilever is currently working with JD Logistics on exploring 5G smart logistics.

 

Digital solution is the strategic project

Yan Zheng, senior director of value supply chain at JD Logistics said, “Supply chain is the recipient of corporate strategy. Strategy determines organization and operations mode. That operation mode will eventually precipitate into data. Only when data contributes business development, can data assets be formed and value be generated. This is the major premise of the digital supply chain. Digitization is a strategic project, and executives need to have strategic determination and long-term persistence, precise and lean management, so that the data system can be effectively established in order to truly realize digitization.”

 

Bing Fu explained that Chinese enterprises will undergo a period of medium-and low-speed development for several years to come. But at the same time, innovative digital technologies will bring new development opportunities, which is the key for industrial transformation.

 

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

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