A Three-part e-Book Series

“Business Digitalization Trends”

Part One: Digitalization as a Means to
Overcome Supply Chain Disruptions
Contents
1. Introduction 3

2. The Biggest Supply Chain Disruptions Today 4

3. The Importance of Risk Management and Strategy 6

4. How Digitalization Can Help? 7

5. Key Advantages of a Digital Supply Chain 8

6. Modern Technologies That Drive Digitalization 9

7. Conclusions / How We Help to Overcome the Disruptions 10

2
Introduction

For the past two years, as we’ve been Fortunately, there are various IT platforms
dealing with numerous global crises and services available on the market that can
caused by political frictions, environmental allow businesses to turn their no-longer-in-
degradation, economic instability, and line-with-today’s-standards infrastructures
biological threats, we’ve also learned an into autonomous supply chain ecosystems,
important lesson about today’s business ones that can eliminate many of the supply
environment, and it’s this: chain bottlenecks with near-zero human
assistance.
Many companies – no matter their size,
industry, location, financial status or This is precisely what this e-book is about
technological maturity – are not prepared – how modern technologies can help
to withstand nor recover from the supply businesses be prepared for/prevent/survive
chain disruptions we experience today. major supply chain disruptions and gain a
competitive advantage in difficult times.
Organizations are simply lacking the right
level of visibility into their supply chains
to be able to predict, identify, and prevent
disruptions effectively. Also, their IT
infrastructures are not powerful enough
to allow them to respond to potential risks
quickly and come out unscathed when
confronted by the unexpected. Considering
that they must also address the ever-
changing customer shopping behaviors
and expectations, companies are going
through a rough patch these days.
2. The Biggest Supply Chain Disruptions Today
As ill-luck would have it, the number of supply chain
disruptions that companies must face and defend
against is growing rapidly. The last two years were
especially intense – so much so that many businesses
did not manage to withstand the pressure and were
forced to shut down. Those which survived are now
trying to get back on their feet, rebuilding their corporate
immune systems so that the wounds can heal faster.
The COVID-19 pandemic was probably the most
impactful of the more recent supply chain disruptions,
with 94% of Fortune 1000 companies indicating that the
event had a major effect on global business operations1.
Within just a couple of weeks, it seemed like the entire
world ground to a halt. Lockdowns made it very difficult
to perform at the level required to maintain business
continuity, partly because many companies were not
prepared to allow their employees to work remotely.
This was, and still is, a multi-country disruption, and
supply chains, in general, lack global resilience. The
scale of the impact was so immense that even today,
two years into the pandemic, the ground continues to
1 https://fortune.com/2020/02/21/fortune-1000-coronavirus-china-supply-chain-impact/
2 https://www.allianz.com/en/economic_research/publications/specials_fmo/2021_12_09_GlobalTradeReport.html
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shake. To regain their position, mitigate the risks, and
protect their assets, companies must develop new
strategies based on optimization and supply chain
monitoring. This is crucial as, according to Allianz’s
economic research2 , supply chain disruptions caused
by COVID-19 outbreaks will remain high in 2023.
The pandemic has also magnified one of the most
pressing supply chain issues: logistics failures. While the
interconnected, harmonious nature of the global supply
chain allows companies to send and receive shipments
to/from any place on Earth, a single disruption can affect
thousands of trading partners. Supply chains are like
living organisms – they can suffer great pains due to one
injury. Thus, delays, delivery downtime, missing parcels,
damaged cargo, and airport lockdowns – all of these can
lead to significant financial losses and overwhelming
customer dissatisfaction, especially when intensified
by other disruptions such as military conflicts.
This is exactly what is taking place in the world
right now as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine. Hit by severe sanctions issued by the US,
Canada, and many European countries, the Russian
market is currently experiencing a dramatic low as
enterprises such as Coca-Cola, Nike, McDonald’s, IKEA,
Unilever, and Netflix have ceased their operations on
its territory. As a result, hundreds – if not thousands
– of global supply chains have been discontinued.
Of course, not only does this come at a price for the
business environment itself, but it also heavily affects
the lives of millions in many countries around the world
who are now facing a significant increase in prices
of fuel, gas, energy, housing, and raw food materials.
Therefore, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that
global logistics operators are also dealing with major
price jumps. The longer this conflict lasts, the more it
will disrupt the already-vulnerable global supply chain,
still bruised by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Natural disasters, due to climate change, have also
become more frequent in recent years. Wildfires,
droughts, floods, extreme temperatures, landslides,
hurricanes – any of such destructive events takes a
3 https://en.calameo.com/read/00460114981ae801d7668
toll on the global supply chain, making it much more
difficult for companies to produce, preserve, ship, and
sell goods.
Not to mention that supply chain operations themselves
are becoming more costly each year3 . This is also caused
by the expectations of end clients who, in the last decade
or so, have grown to expect near-instant order fulfillment,
personalized offers and content, and full transparency
as to product information and delivery status. Ergo,
to keep up with shopping trends, today’s companies
must make sure the channels of communication
they established with their partners and clients allow
them to transfer large volumes of business-relevant
(often sensitive) data in the shortest time possible.
We know how discouraging and unsettling all of this
may seem, but this is our reality right now. However,
the above doesn’t mean there’s nothing that you can do
to prepare themselves and protect your supply chains
effectively – even when faced with extraordinarily
difficult circumstances.
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3. The Importance of Risk Management and Strategy

The risks that a company must be aware of are mainly are more exposed to a broader range of risks, including
related to production, labor, and logistics. Therefore, those over which they have near-zero or no control.
supply chain management is primarily about achieving
full transparency, resilience, and agility in those areas. Below, you will find a list created by Statista concerning
the most prevalent factors and conditions that make
This is especially difficult now that most companies have businesses vulnerable4 to supply chain disruptions.
dramatically expanded their supply chains in size and As you will see, depending on the industry, those
complexity to meet today’s standards and users’ needs determinants can vary considerably.
and expectations. Organizations that run such chains

Demand variability

Sole sourcing / nonsustainable

inputs

long input kead times

Low/just-in-time inventory

Lack visibility on supplier risks

Concentrated production

Risk-prone logistics

Aging plant and equipment

Short shelf life of products

% 0 10 20 30 40 50
Share of respondents

Automotive and assembly Chemicals

Consumer and packaged goods Pharmaceuticals and medical devices

4 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1155429/sources-supply-chain-vulnerability-worldwide-industry/

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To become successful at predicting disruptions and
managing risks, you need to redesign/improve your
supply chain strategy so that you and your suppliers can
build and operate within a much more reliable supply
network.
This means that procurements must naturally ensure
cost-efficiency and contribute to achieving business
targets. It also means introducing various enhancements
to your business and operating models. If you approach
this process in the right way, it will turn out that changing
4. How Can Digitalization Help?
Digitalization is about completely redesigning and
improving all business communication channels and
exchange processes between trading partners across
the entire supply chain. Why? First, to make it easier
for a given company to build and collaborate within a
supply chain network system. And second, to allow that
company to protect its assets when a disruption occurs.
The essential part of this process is digitalizing your
procurement processes, which starts with eliminating
the use of paper and manual handling of orders, delivery
your models can be faster, easier, and more affordable
than you’d think.
Some supply chains may adopt more scalable operating
models that allow you to be much more flexible about
how you assemble and reorganize components. Others
may focus on developing an integrated, end-to-end digital
roadmap. It is, therefore, critical that organizations
evaluate their current strategies, identify their weak
points, and then act on their priorities in a way that will
enable them to fill the gaps.
notes, invoices, and other documents. This is achieved
through introducing digital tools for data exchange and
document management.
Combining the right IT tools and the information you
put in them will help streamline various procedures and
introduce a more powerful way to control the activities
within the supply chain. Additionally, reporting and
data analysis tools will guide you through the land of
business opportunities and show you the direction that
is the most profitable for your company.
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By incorporating such solutions into your IT infrastructure,
your in-house departments – sales, manufacturing, and
logistics – will use one common data platform to share
information, which will help improve data efficiency and
drive business growth significantly.
Of course, purchasing and making data exchange tools
part of your IT environment is one thing. Getting your
employees – and your partners and clients – to use
them effectively is a different story. To the best of our
knowledge many companies believe their supply chain
capabilities in terms of planning, risk management,
logistics, and procurement are digitally immature
5. Key Advantages of a Digital Supply Chain
This is leads us to the benefits of supply chain
digitization. If you have read through recent market
reports and publications on this topic, you may already
be familiar with some of these benefits. However,
the mere fact that they are repeatedly brought up by
industry leaders proves that going digital pays off.
First, the digitalization of supply chain processes allows
you to remove major supply chain bottlenecks by giving
you a complete overview of your activities and inventory
levels. With the proper monitoring and data exchange
tools at hand, you can be sure your business will never
be out of stock.
88 WHITEPAPER
nevertheless they express an interest in investing in
dedicated training to improve their employees’ skills at
using digital tools.
This shows that digital transformation is a trend that
keeps gaining momentum, so it is just a matter of time
before it becomes global. Thus, the companies that have
already made investments in data exchange tools will
most probably gain a significant competitive advantage
by the time others jump on the digital bandwagon.
Second, by running your operations in the digital domain,
you create a working environment in which order and
delivery times can be drastically minimized.
Thirdly, through digitalization, you can improve your
cashflows extensively since less money is needed to
maintain stock excess , both of products for sale, as
well as raw materials.
Next, your company can benefit significantly from a
digital supply chain as it helps optimize decision-making
processes and reduce operational costs by allowing you
to adopt the Just-in-Time (JIT) methodology. JIT is an
inventory management method (or strategy) that lets
you decrease waste as you receive goods from suppliers
only when they are needed for production purposes.
Thus, with JIT, you can reduce flow times and costs in
production and distribution.
Of course, the digitalization of supply chains also
allows you to collect, share, and analyze business
data efficiently. In other words, by gaining complete
visibility into your global operations, not only can you
monitor your progress in real-time, but you can also
create a sound business roadmap and make important
decisions based on actual evidence, not predictions or
6. Modern Technologies that Drive Digitalization
Today’s companies can use various IT platforms and
services to avoid, anticipate, and overcome supply chain
disruptions. However, methods that are data-driven and
cloud-based are considered the most effective. Why?
Because such solutions allow businesses to react to all
kinds of market changes almost instantaneously, and
to scale their supply chain operations up and down
whenever they want to meet their needs and goals.
What makes a supply chain management platform
worthy of your attention? Well, not only should such a
solution include well-designed, advanced yet easy-to-
use supply chain planning & management applications,
but it should also allow you to improve and expand
your business endeavors by introducing the latest
technological innovations such as artificial intelligence,
speculations.
Plus, if you want to know more about specific digital tools
and features such as ai-powered automatic document
validation, electronic vendor managed inventory (eVMI),
sourcing reports (based on information concerning
purchase & spend), supplier value management (SVM),
and community-centric models – all of which allow you
to achieve the above-mentioned benefits – check out
our recent webinar with Forrester Research. Available
on-demand, this material presents what today’s leading
business automation experts think about modern data
exchange technologies. Speaking of which…
machine learning-based data analytics, or robotics.
Knowing how quickly the business environment is
changing these days, more and more companies are
becoming aware that they need to use the right digital
tools to remain competitive. Innovations such as AI-
powered tools will play a crucial role in helping them
keep their market position, especially since they are now
becoming major drivers of digital automation across the
globe.
Of course, by saying that companies require the right
digital tools, we also mean that those platforms must
be fully aligned with their strategies and goals, meaning
their functional scope must allow businesses to perform
at the highest level on all supply chain fronts.
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7. Conclusions / How We Help to Overcome the
Disruptions
There’s a reason – many reasons actually – why so
many industry leaders and futurists say that „digital
is the new black.” Data exchange technologies are
now instrumental to running a business, no matter
your industry, product, or location. Without tech, it is
impossible to predict, prevent, or even survive supply
chain disruptions – which, as well all know, are growing
in number rapidly.
To remain competitive, companies must develop fully
dynamic, transparent, and highly efficient supply
chains – and this can be done only with data exchange
& document management platforms and services. Of
course, these cannot be some run-of-the-mill solutions.
They must be powerful enough to allow businesses to
monitor their supply chain flows in real time so that they
can react to any disruptions accordingly. This means the
latest AI-powered, cloud-based, data-driven platforms
are definitely the go-to options.
At Comarch, we are well aware of the challenges today’s
companies must face. Thus, our goal is, first of all, to
provide our clients with high-end IT solutions that will
allow them to optimize and streamline their supply chain
processes, and second, to support them in every way
through their digitalization journeys.
This is why we deliver Comarch EDI, a cloud-based
B2B platform that enables safe, quick, and reliable
data & document exchange covering a wide range of
e-documents such as orders and invoices between its
users and their trading partners.
For more information about our platform, go to www.edi.comarch.com
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By allowing you to connect with partners over multiple
channels (e-mail, web, API, AS2/AS4, and FTP), Comarch
EDI enables you to improve your communication across
the entire supply chain significantly and thus gain a
competitive advantage.
The great thing about it is that your partners don’t
need to implement it and make it part of their IT
infrastructures, as they can use the WebEDI version to
send/receive business information to/from you. It’s all
been taken care of.
All of the above mentioned functionalities may be
integrated in a transparent and user friendly Comarch
environment.
Most importantly, thanks to dynamic EDI messages
and notifications, automatically generated inventory
and sales data reports, as well as purchase order
proposals and confirmations, it helps you prevent global
supply chain disruptions from affecting your company’s
operations and lets you focus more on what is the most
important – your business.
That’s it for this part of our e-book series! Stay tuned
for part two, which will focus on the automation of AP/
AR processes and the reasons why e-invoicing is now
becoming such a global trend.
 Contact:
Vincenzo Cirillo
Business Solutions Manager
Vincenzo.Cirillo@comarch.com

About Comarch
Comarch has over twenty years of experience in designing, implementing and integrating state-of-the art IT solutions. The most important aspect offered to
the largest enterprises is a comprehensive suite of IT solutions and professional services, which can help to build and manage loyalty programmes, create
rich consumer experiences and personalised interactions across multiple touch points, automate marketing processes and, finally, boost profits. Our software
supports the entire loyalty value chain. Comarch has multi-industry experience, gained through work with over eighty clients (including airlines and other travel
companies, telecoms, financial institutions, retail and consumer goods companies and many more) such as JetBlue Airways, London Heathrow Airport and
BP. The offer also includes big data analytics and innovative customer engagement systems based on gamification, which increase profits and strengthen
relationships between customers, partners and the brand.

info@comarch.com | www.comarch.com