What role are Startups playing in the Digital Transformation of Supply Chain Management?

When most people hear the word ‘startup’ their minds instantly wander to a mental image of a business started by young adults, sitting around on beanbag chairs, wearing branded t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts, down to their last cent of funding and underdeveloped as an organization.

Do your thoughts align with that mental picture described above?

If so, it’s ok…that just makes this post all the more fun!

When I hear the word startup I think instantly of tech, innovation, market expansion, disruption, new products and exciting opportunity.

I, as an employee of a startup, am (of course) a bit biased within my opinions surrounding the stereotyped image of a startup.

For this post, when speaking of a startup, I would like to refer to the following definition as our framework of shared understanding for what ‘startup’ means.

The portion I find most interesting in this definition is the poignant mention of “something that addresses a particular market gap”.

This is the exact reason why startups hold such a massive potential for impact within existing business structures whether it be social, political, industrial or financial. Regardless of the vertical, startup ventures are locating gaps in the existing market and attacking them with rapidness even cheetahs would respect.

Recent trends in the global marketplace have shown that there is a digital transformation of supply chain management; moving away from its traditional state. There are multiple technological advancements that have caused this disruptive chasm in the industry. As days pass by, the technology just grows more intelligent, more structured, more user-friendly.

Technologies such as AI, Big Data, Machine Learning, IoT, Uberization, SaaS, 3D printing, workflow automation, self-driving vehicles, drones, wearables, and many more have led a surge into transitioning the daily activities completed within the domain of supply chain management.

Advancements such as the Internet of Things (IoT), which allows a virtual continuum for data collection between the physical and cloud, have been estimated to have economic impact in the range of $2.7 trillion — $6.2 trillion, by 2025.

Trillion.

What if I were to tell you none of this would be possible without the contribution of those measly, cheese curl stained t-shirted, startup ventures?

Believe it or not, startups have a major stake in the digital transformation of the supply chain management marketplace.

Startups have seen the gap in the market, and attacked.

Due to this trend, businesses globally have reaped the benefits of more efficient supply chains, providing stakeholders with the transparency they demand, and doing it all without hurting their top-line.

Just last week, 2 government organizations from Singapore gave 2.8 million dollars worth of soft-money to startups building technology to enhance supply chain activities. These are exactly the kind of investments that show the support big business and government is willing to throw at these small companies.

Startups functioning in the supply chain management domain, are creating a new dichotomy of managing supply chain risks.

The irony of it all is perfectly wrong.

Supply chain management teams- individuals that evaluate risk and manage that risk for a living -are putting their trust in new/young/less-experienced (potentially risky) startups in order to optimize risk management.

If doesn’t make you smile, I dunno what will.

Technology First

Development and updating of supply chain technology has continued to push the innovation curve.

For this reason, enterprise corporations aren’t able to develop the same capabilities that can be purchased from other tech services (many of which are provided by startups).

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