With a large number of factories shut down worldwide, the supply chain ecosystem has been affected around the globe. As governments around the globe have imposed a lockdown, forcing people to stay at their homes, the brick-and-mortar stores are facing a serious issue. Even though eCommerce shops are the availability of products online, the question of “How much products are you buying?'” is still debatable. Let’s have a look at how COVID-19 has affected the supply chain ecosystem.
The Challenges For Supply Chain Ecosystem
Supply Disruptions
The first challenge in the supply chain comes from upstream. With the coronavirus hitting hard, affecting the global supply of raw materials. As production units around the world are being shut down to contain the virus, it’s effects are marking its presence in all industries.
Demand Volatility
The bold move by the governments to contain the virus has adversely impacted the sales. For example, as people staying indoors, there is a sharp decline in the sale. As travel restrictions leading to sharp declines for the booking oh hotels, restaurants and other businesses that depend upon tourism. Meanwhile, sanitizers, masks and other healthcare products have a sudden spike in demand, leading to panic buying and products going out of stock. The demand will remain volatile throughout this crisis.
Oversteering
The supply chain ecosystem philosophy states that uncertainty creates a bullwhip effect that can be unpleasant in a global supply chain crisis. If customers start buying more than they need or if they end up not buying other things altogether, the supply chain gets affected.
Retails and wholesalers start either to cut down the orders or to over order things. This tendency amplifies the effect upstream. When such an oversteering happens, smaller retailers are worst hit. Either their business comes to a grinding halt or they run well over their capacity.
How eCommerce Can Help To Balance The Supply Chain
Data Collection
Data holds the key. The primary step of optimizing and building a stable supply-chain system is to map the current supply chain. Every possible data needs to be collected. A total holistic approach may consider the salaries of the workers and even their time invested in. A business management software can integrate multiple cost centre in the enterprise application to gauge and understand the supply chain cost structures.
An Upper Hand In The Market
The success of an eCommerce store lies in saving your expenses while providing customers faster or cheaper delivery options. Lowering the costs associated with the supply chain helps in balancing the reduction in the delivery cost. This plays a part in customers able to save their expenses and also earn trust with your brand. Optimizing the supply chain will give you an advantage of automatically optimizing even the routes from the vendor warehouse to your warehouse.
Developing A Cost-Effective Supply Chain
A deep dive into the supply chain ecosystem can help in areas of cost optimization and automation of every step with efficient business management software. The cost-saving helps in maintaining supplier relationships, streamlining storage strategy, integrating business intelligence to analyze customer patterns and the movement of supplies. Speeding up the process and the delivery, with the help of an efficient enterprise application, will lower the revenue turnaround time and save more on technology during the long run.
Integrated Supply Chain For Timely Demand Fulfilment
For a retailer, competing with giants compels one to stay agile with the existing supply chain management. An eCommerce business application will have an inventory management system to track the balance of the supply chain ecosystem. With more demand, the suppliers optimize their last-mile delivery system to cater to their needs. A good enterprise application can be integrated into your system can do the job for you.
Conclusion
The global COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global panic, resulting in the disruption of the supply chain ecosystem and impacting retailers. But eCommerce and business applications play a major role in countering this crisis. Want to know more how eCommerce helps to sustain the supply chain ecosystem and helps your business? Contact us for free consulting.
