For several years now, there has been intense talk about supply chain disruption, or the transformations that have forced companies to rethink their supply chains. Every company is, therefore, looking for solutions that will enable it to cope with this paradigm shift. One possible answer is Supply Chain Management in the Cloud, a shift to next-generation solutions that enable it to meet the needs of today’s market.

Supply chain in the cloud: the flexibility you need

To understand how supply chain management has changed, one only needs to look at the price lists of raw materials or suppliers, which are now more volatile than ever.

However, confirmation also comes from authoritative sources such as Moody’s Analytics¹, which highlights difficulties in strategic sourcing and the geopolitical situation as two of the main challenges for 2024. Accenture, for its part, offers a veritable handbook² on how to deal with Supply Chain Disruption more broadly.

One thing is certain: companies need to be agile in their decision-making and even faster in their execution, including choices about supply and management of products and goods. In this context, the cloud becomes a natural supply chain ally, both for its inherent efficiency and for the flexibility it offers.

Supply chain and cloud computing: the known benefits

Before going any further, a clarification is necessary: when we talk about the cloud in relation to supply chain management, and for most of the tools to support the supply chain, we mainly mean Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions, where the entire application is provided by an operator and used on a fee or subscription basis.

This solution offers the inherent advantages of the cloud, which we briefly recall:

  • Availability independent of corporate resources and infrastructure;
  • ability to scale computing (and storage) capacity up or down virtually instantaneously;
  • upgrades, routine maintenance guaranteed by the vendor;
  • cybersecurity under shared responsibility.

These advantages, as we know, make it possible to lighten the burden of technology solutions within the business organization, but also to cope with any fluctuations in need. However, there are also other, less immediate benefits worth considering.

Modern problems require modern solutions

In addition to the challenges related to supply per se, companies today have to manage a greater set of needs and demands, including on the regulatory side, than in the past. But why is the cloud an appropriate answer?

Primarily, because each application tends to focus on the issues typical of the period in which it was designed. This means that the most modern and up-to-date tools available in the cloud natively have answers to today’s needs: security, flexibility and compliance, for example.

This puts companies in a position to respond in a more agile manner, without the need for changes or additions to their software or infrastructure. The nature of the cloud, in which updates and enhancements are distributed directly from the vendor to customers, also has the potential to make this benefit stick over time.

If we think about the Cloud in broader terms for a moment, moreover, we can identify another advantage, which has to do with flexibility. As we know, one of the features of this mode is to absorb the costs of deployment and licensing in favor of a monthly cost model. This also simplifies the process of experimenting with new products and solutions, since the company will not have to acquire the entire necessary IT architecture in advance.

Supply Chain and Cloud: successfully meeting the challenges of the modern marketplace

In a time of discontinuity and unpredictability, cloud solutions are the ideal strategy to better manage supply chains. Transitioning to the cloud, in addition to technological improvement, provides resilience, scalability and security with an adaptable tool that can respond nimbly to market fluctuations and increasing regulatory requirements.

Integrating the supply chain with cloud solutions is not just an operational or financial choice, but a strategy that prepares companies to meet the needs of today and the future.

Do you want to make your company’s supply chain more efficient? Tell us your needs and find out together with our experts the best way to start the transformation process.

¹: Source. Moodysanalytics.com

²: Source. Accenture.com

Summary