In today鈥檚 environment of ongoing disruption, rising customer expectations, and persistent labor and cost pressures, warehouse operations are more strategic than ever. We believe long-term recognition in this market requires more than point solutions; it demands scale, depth, and an orchestrated approach that connects warehousing with other supply chain functions.

A recognition we believe is built on scale, reach, and execution

We believe scale matters when it comes to warehouse management. Warehouse operations are increasingly complex and diverse, and organizations often operate networks that span regions, industries, and levels of automation. Warehouse management is not a one鈥憇ize鈥慺its鈥慳ll challenge, and global organizations need solutions that can support regional requirements while remaining consistent and integrated across complex networks.

(麻豆原创 EWM) is designed to support organizations running 麻豆原创 ERP or 麻豆原创 S/4HANA as well as non-麻豆原创 environments. With customers across 24 industries, 麻豆原创 EWM supports a broad range of warehouse complexity鈥攆rom regional distribution centers to highly automated, high鈥憈hroughput operations. It enables organizations to standardize execution, improve visibility, and integrate warehouse processes with transportation, manufacturing, and broader supply chain operations.

麻豆原创 EWM continues to expand its innovation footprint with APIs for seamless robotics integration, as well as AI-assisted capabilities such as predictive labor demand planning and slotting. 麻豆原创鈥檚 Joule AI solution鈥攅mbedded across applications鈥攃an further enhance 麻豆原创 EWM by enabling natural-language interactions and supporting AI capabilities that operate both within workflows and in the background, helping organizations improve workforce efficiency and execution agility.

A portfolio approach to meet different warehouse needs

麻豆原创鈥檚 warehouse strategy is built around choice and flexibility. In February 2026, 麻豆原创 announced the general availability of , an AI鈥慹nabled, cloud鈥憂ative, microservices-architecture-based solution designed to complement 麻豆原创鈥檚 established logistics portfolio by supporting local, satellite, and mid鈥憇cale logistics operations.

麻豆原创 Logistics Management helps unite warehouse execution and transportation planning in a single solution, supporting pick鈥憄ack鈥憇hip processes while enabling integrated freight coordination and carrier collaboration through . Designed to work seamlessly with , the solution helps organizations connect localized operations with broader enterprise landscapes, improving coordination and real鈥憈ime visibility across logistics networks. Embedded AI capabilities, including support for Joule, can assist users with faster decision鈥憁aking and more intuitive interactions across logistics workflows.

Together, 麻豆原创 EWM and 麻豆原创 Logistics Management enable organizations to align technology investments with operational complexity, supporting mixed warehouse networks that include both highly automated facilities and smaller, distributed sites.

Platform strategy and supply chain convergence

Warehouse execution does not operate in isolation. 麻豆原创鈥檚 platform strategy connects warehousing with transportation, manufacturing, quality, maintenance, global trade, sustainability, and partner collaboration across the supply chain.

麻豆原创 EWM can be used with solutions to support process analysis and continuous improvement. It can leverage standardized APIs across 麻豆原创 ERP and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA to connect with adjacent execution systems such as transportation management, global trade, environmental health and safety, and . This platform-based approach helps organizations move beyond siloed execution toward coordinated, end鈥憈o鈥慹nd supply chain

Looking ahead

麻豆原创 remains focused on helping customers modernize warehouse operations while navigating broader ERP and cloud transformations. While organizations must carefully evaluate deployment models, cloud strategies, and long鈥憈erm road maps, 麻豆原创 continues to invest in warehouse management solutions that scale globally, integrate deeply, and support evolving business requirements.

We believe that being recognized by Gartner as a Leader for the 12^th consecutive time reflects continued execution across 麻豆原创鈥檚 warehouse management portfolio and the trust customers place in 麻豆原创 to manage critical logistics operations worldwide.

to learn more about why 麻豆原创 is a Leader. Learn more about the capabilities of .

Till Dengel is global head of Product Marketing for Logistics and Asset & Service Management at 麻豆原创.

*Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems, by Simon Tunstall, Rishabh Narang, Federica Stufano, 29 April 2026.

Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Gartner and Magic Quadrant are trademarks of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates.

Complementing 麻豆原创鈥檚 established logistics portfolio supporting large-scale supply chain operations, 麻豆原创 Logistics Management brings innovative capabilities specifically tuned to the needs of smaller operations seeking efficiency, real-time visibility, and faster decision-making.

鈥淟ogistics is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Those who invest in strategic warehousing and logistics networks are investing in a future defined by responsiveness and relevance. It鈥檚 about being ready, connected, and purposeful,鈥� says Till Dengel, 麻豆原创鈥檚 global head of Product Marketing for Logistics.

Designed for local impact, powered for global reach 

While 麻豆原创鈥檚 best-in-class  continue to serve complex global logistics with extensive capabilities, 麻豆原创 Logistics Management now bridges the gap for local and satellite operations needing powerful, streamlined tools and controls without the complexity of large enterprise systems. Not only can 麻豆原创 Logistics Management elevate the performance of localized operations, but it also enables a connected network of satellite operations that can stay coordinated with global enterprise systems.   

The  solution offers: 

• Connected fulfilment excellence: By uniting warehousing and transportation capabilities, 麻豆原创 Logistics Management helps streamline order fulfillment by managing pick-pack-ship workflows while efficiently planning and coordinating the freight movement. The solution includes built-in collaboration with carriers through 麻豆原创 Business Network, connecting shippers directly with logistics providers for real-time updates that can minimize costly delays and keep shipments on track.  
• Tailored for smaller operations: 麻豆原创 Logistics Management is ideal for local branches, subsidiaries, and seasonal operations. It helps eliminate unnecessary complexity, giving smaller operations the powerful tools and connectivity they need without the overhead of large enterprise systems. 
• Seamless integration: Designed to work seamlessly with , 麻豆原创 Logistics Management can eliminate hidden interface costs and helps ensure compatibility with 麻豆原创鈥檚 existing transportation and warehouse management tools. Businesses can benefit from a smooth, cohesive ecosystem. 
• AI-driven and human-centric: Embedded AI empowers faster, smarter decision-making and workflows. can enable users to interact via natural language, helping to make involved logistics questions easy to handle right from the start. The solution鈥檚 mobile-first design helps ensure users can ramp-up quickly and access essential functions anytime, anywhere, for efficient workflows on the go. 
• Scalable SaaS solution: As a SaaS-native solution, 麻豆原创 Logistics Management can be up and running in days. It can scale effortlessly as the business grows, offering built-in analytics and dashboards that help provide actionable insights tailored to operations鈥攕mall or large. 

鈥淰isibility grants insight, connectivity empowers control, and agility provides the decisive edge,鈥� Dengel says. 鈥淭he future of logistics belongs to those who digitize every process, orchestrate every tier, and deliver on every promise.鈥� 

麻豆原创 Logistics Management helps empower businesses to connect and manage logistics operations efficiently, regardless of size. Whether running small local operations or orchestrating global distribution, 麻豆原创鈥檚 latest AI-powered innovation can equip businesses with the tools and capabilities to thrive in highly competitive markets by enabling them to be connected, agile, and growth-oriented. Learn more about . 

Oyku Ilgar is part of 麻豆原创 Supply Chain Thought Leadership & Awareness.

The challenge is clear: without a plan to adapt and evolve, organizations expose themselves to rising logistics costs and limited scalability. To remain agile and deliver on rising customer expectations, companies must move along the logistics maturity curve鈥攖ransitioning from manual, fragmented practices to agile, automated operations.

With four key techniques outlined in our , organizations can accelerate their maturity journey and build supply chain logistics operations that are efficient, resilient, and orchestrated.

Driving efficiency: From manual tasks to intelligent automation

At the initial stages of maturity, logistics operations often rely on siloed and manual processes, such as contracting carriers via e-mail and managing data in spreadsheets. This fragmented approach creates inefficiencies, increases the risk of errors, and limits the scalability of operations.

Improving efficiency starts with the process of digitalization. By integrating enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms with transportation and warehouse management systems, companies can streamline routine tasks like data entry, eliminate redundant communications, and better utilize resources. For example, intelligent operations can optimize transportation costs through load consolidation and mode shifting; enable better planning by reducing reliance on spot shipments; improve mileage and fuel consumption through route optimization; and prevent overpayments with invoice validation.

Automating these processes breaks down the first barrier to decision-making by handing valuable time back to logistics teams. And as organizations mature, these efficiencies become embedded into daily workflows that span the organizational gap across carriers and trading partners. Resource allocation becomes data-driven and adaptive, setting the stage for more advanced capabilities and collaboration.

Enhancing visibility to turn data into actionable insights

Limited visibility is a common pain point for lower-maturity organizations, where shipment status is either unknown until final delivery or only accessible by leaving the core fulfillment process. Without timely and integrated insights, it’s difficult to adjust to disruptions or meet rising customer expectations.

To move forward, businesses must turn insight into action, eliminating data silos to integrate real-time visibility into core order fulfillment processes. This technology enables proactive decision-making, powered by predictive analytics and automation.

Companies can further enhance agility and visibility by optimizing executable transportation plans that align with fulfillment needs. With these capabilities, customer service teams can forecast potential delays or disruptions and create automated customer notifications for exceptions or changes. Improved visibility ultimately leads to insights that can help companies commit to and then deliver on customer promises.

For businesses that need help turning data into action, can unify information from multiple sources to help align transportation management with broader supply chain operations.

Building resilience for the unexpected

In today鈥檚 volatile landscape, resilience puts leaders ahead of the pack. It鈥檚 a prerequisite for success. Mature organizations are built to absorb shocks and continue delivering, while less mature systems are often left scrambling to respond with costly, reactive measures.

Resilient logistics operations are flexible, sustainable, and data-driven. They make quick but methodical decisions when disruptions arise based on embedded analytics and intelligent optimization.

In the face of disruption, mature organizations look for ways to make marginal gains throughout planning, contracting, and execution. They understand that constant incremental improvement creates broader success. This can take the form of optimizing routes to minimize miles or shifting to lower-emission modes or equipment to reduce carbon footprints. These organizations may also examine their load configurations to fit more cases or pallets into a trailer or container, stacking efficiencies across their operation.

With the right tools and processes in place, businesses can transform potential disruptions into opportunities for competitive advantage.

Enabling orchestration by coordinating people, processes, and partners

Automated orchestration is the final step of the supply chain maturity model. Seamless, harmonized coordination of systems, people, and partners is the apex of supply chain logistics maturity. Here, every component of the logistics ecosystem operates in sync, guided by autonomous, AI-based technologies across a unified strategy. Such a high level of ecosystem integration allows organizations to anticipate risk, respond dynamically, and collaborate across their ecosystem.

Achieving orchestration demands connected systems across a unifying platform, real-time collaboration, and adaptive execution across the supply chain. Key elements to enable orchestration include access to predictive, real-time data on shipments, demand, capacity, weather, traffic, and port congestion that enable synchronized optimization, spanning a unified platform for digital transactions extended to a multi-modal carrier network.

In an era defined by an abundance of data yet a perpetual risk of disruption, standing still is not an option. Connecting the dots between people, processes, and partners will help companies stay ahead of potential disruptions and build the foundation for a collaborative, data-driven, and optimized supply chain.

Advancing with the right capabilities

No matter where an organization stands on the logistics maturity curve, the techniques outlined above can drive tangible progress鈥攑rovided the right plan is in place.

can empower organizations to optimize and automate execution and achieve real-time visibility to respond effectively to changing market conditions. Solutions like can further enhance collaboration between shippers and carriers, helping to reduce cost, improve on-time delivery rates, and eliminate friction across logistics processes.

To remain competitive, businesses must chart a clear path toward orchestrated logistics operations or risk being left behind by those that do.

Doug DeLuca is an 麻豆原创 Business Network product marketing manager.

Menzies Aviation delivers time-critical logistics that annually result in 1.3 million aircraft turns, 3.2 million aircraft refueled, and 2 million tons of cargo handled. Already in its third consecutive year of since the pandemic, Menzies accelerates its market momentum through a mix of strategic partnerships, contract wins, and acquisitions. And demand for modern, efficient passenger and cargo services is ever increasing. In fact, the is forecast to grow from US$196.96 billion in 2024 to $570.12 billion in 2032.

Ask the employees of Menzies Aviation what they like about their jobs, and they鈥檒l likely tell you that it鈥檚 the variety and pace of work in an environment where every day is different and every action matters.

Sarah Mackinlay, senior vice president of People Projects & Integrations at Menzies Aviation, says that outstanding teamwork is at the heart of Menzies鈥� success: 鈥淭here isn’t one person who can do their job alone. You need a team of people to prepare, load, and push back an aircraft. Everybody working positively together drives that excellence. It’s that united vision of wanting to safely provide the best possible service.鈥�

This team spirit inspires employees to work toward their full potential to achieve exceptional service. To empower its employees to deliver safe and trusted aviation services that are integral to its mission, Menzies is on a transformative journey to harness the power of technology for greater productivity and business agility. Menzies now provides employees in 53 countries with an improved employee experience 鈥� a result of its global HR transformation to adopt the cloud-based capabilities of .

Putting 鈥淧eople, Passion, and Pride鈥� at the Center of Business

With a proud that dates to 1833, Menzies has always been a business that is about people, Mackinlay underscores. The company aligns its business and people strategy on three pillars: people, passion, and pride. 鈥淔rom a people strategy point of view, we’re very much focused on three key drivers: making Menzies a great place for our people to work; being passionate about growing our employees and growing our own leaders; and taking pride in getting the basics right,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat third pillar is where my focus is at its strongest. By doing that, it makes [Menzies] a great place to work, and it gives people the opportunity to lead, learn, and grow.鈥�

By choosing 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors HCM, Menzies now has a unified platform to help it attain data-driven insights for business agility and provide a modern employee experience with opportunities for learning and career development. 鈥淢y job is an enabler for so many other things within our organization,鈥� Mackinlay says. 鈥淧roviding a solution that supports our frontline employee or manager in the business to do their job more efficiently, smoothly, and easily 鈥� those things are what really excite me.鈥� 

Unlocking Business Insights from Global Visibility of Data

Menzies had previously relied on a mix of people processes and platforms, and struggled to make sense of its people data, which was siloed in disparate systems in various regions. 鈥淭he simple question of ‘How many employees do you have?’ we couldn’t answer that at the click of a button,鈥� says Mackinlay, noting the critical nature of seasonal travel fluctuations that impact the workforce. 鈥淭hat could take us several days to a week to be able to go out to all our regions and check and validate those numbers, because data was held across multiple systems and spreadsheets.鈥�

Already experienced working with the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Learning solution since 2015, along with 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Performance & Goals for graded management across the business, Menzies Aviation had selected 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Employee Central as its core HR system, but the implementation was very gradual in the early years and by the end of 2022 the solution had been rolled out to just 11 countries. In early 2023, Menzies began its transformative journey to leverage the broad benefits of cloud HR. Working with as its implementation partner, it accelerated the global rollout by prioritizing a defined baseline consistency model over more detailed, country-specific customizations. It also benefited from pre-delivered localization capabilities, such as language support, local best practices, and automated legal and regulatory updates. In one year, 52 countries were up and running on 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Employee Central, integrated with the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Learning, 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Performance & Goals, and other core business systems, making it the source of truth for employee data where live.

October saw the latest location join this journey when Hong Kong went live with 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Employee Central and 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Learning. Utilizing this momentum, Menzies is now expanding its use of the solution, which is already available to its workforce in the UK and will soon include Portugal and Hong Kong.

鈥淲e鈥檙e a small team, but each person contributed an exceptional effort, both in time and skill, to bring the organization together around this transformation 鈥� that includes stakeholder buy-in, mapping and cleansing the data, all the quality checks, and communicating clearly and openly with HR teams around the business to ensure adoption and change management,鈥� says Mackinlay, who is optimistic about what the next phases of Menzies鈥� cloud HR journey will bring. 鈥淭here were some long days, indeed, but as a team we can be proud of what we鈥檝e accomplished so far 鈥� and the benefits to the business are already becoming apparent. This is the real foundation for what we can go on to achieve next and having the support of the local HR teams continues to be critical to the success of the rollout.鈥�

Today, Menzies no longer needs to estimate how many employees it has at any given time. Having a single source of data means that it can pull up this information at the push of a button for the present as well as the historical past for comparison. 鈥淲e can start to see trends, so we can start to understand what our future models would look like as well,鈥� says Mackinlay, who values the improved reporting capabilities that provide greater visibility into the business 鈥� which, for example, helps the teams to understand the type of work people are doing and how their time and effort contribute to the business. 鈥淏eing able to have business insight and business data to make decisions has been really important on our continued journey with 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors and supporting our global strategy.鈥�

Menzies is reaping the benefits of moving towards one global solution, which include consistent and standardized HR processes across its multiple countries and territories of operation, role-based authorizations for data access, worldwide regulatory compliance with localization, simplified maintenance for a single solution, and ease of integration with other HR processes and functions. As Mackinlay summarizes, 鈥淔or us, this journey is about having a single source of truth with global consistency, data insight, and visibility yet maintaining local data ownership. Data security and integrity are at the very core.鈥�

One Stop for Employee Experience

For Menzies Aviation, the journey gains momentum as more employees engage with the platform, opening the way to transform how work is done. Currently, Menzies is focusing its effort to elevate the employee experience by introducing self-service capabilities for all employees, giving them access to their own data and streamlining HR service delivery with efficient, real-time processes for workflows and approvals.

More than two-thirds of Menzies employees perform their work away from a desk, so communication with these employees for routine employment matters can be challenging. The new self-service capability is the next part of Menzies鈥� journey enabled by its 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Employee Central base platform. Menzies is partnering with other core business systems to create a new one-stop entry point for all employment-related information, including upcoming shifts, holidays, and tools to support employees in their day-to-day roles.

A key benefit for HR teams is that it frees them to focus on more value-added work. As Menzies continues to grow and hire new employees, it plans to look for digital solutions to accelerate the recruiting and onboarding processes. Menzies is also excited to explore how AI-enabled technologies can further support the HR team 鈥� including adopting , 麻豆原创鈥檚 AI copilot, and using generative AI.

鈥淲e’re a people business,鈥� Mackinlay says. 鈥淲e want our HR teams to be with our people. It’s a journey that we’re on 鈥� and we’ve been on since 2015 鈥� to enable our HR teams to have the tools to be more employee facing and available to support our employees as they grow and develop their potential towards an exciting career at Menzies Aviation.鈥�

Find out more about .

On another day, this would be one of many alerts that supply chain logistics professionals see from 麻豆原创 Business Network鈥檚 logistics collaboration solutions. Unfortunately, on this day there is more to the story than the indicator on the map can tell us.

By now, we鈥檝e all seen photos and videos of the cargo ship Dali striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing a section to collapse into the Patapsco River in Baltimore鈥檚 outer harbor on Tuesday, March 26. They tell the story on a human level.

This event was a terrible tragedy where people lost loved ones. We are also mindful of the thousands of people whose livelihoods have been affected and of the impact this tragedy will have on the City of Baltimore and surrounding areas for years to come. It is a reminder that transportation logistics is not just a routine process of moving goods from point A to point B. It鈥檚 high stakes, dangerous work that we depend on to keep the world鈥檚 economic engine running.

Recovering from the Disruption: Three Scenarios

Another reality to the tragedy is that even as events were unfolding in Baltimore, supply chain and logistics professionals were compelled to act quickly to address a shockwave of related disruptions. As one of my colleagues noted, 鈥淕lobally, companies immediately devoted extra resources to determine what inventory they have at the Port of Baltimore, what鈥檚 on the water headed there, and what鈥檚 leaving their factories that can be rerouted.鈥� Buying organizations looked closely at inbound shipments, while their suppliers were checking how the disruption would impact outbound deliveries.

Increasingly today, buyers and suppliers rely on technology to gain visibility into the global supply chain. This makes it possible to track shipments, reroute them as needed, or take other remedial action. To explain this further, I鈥檇 like to address three port disruption scenarios and how suppliers and buyers can use 麻豆原创 solutions, including , , and , to recover and be more resilient through adversity.

1. Identifying and Tracking Outbound Shipments Impacted by a Port Closure

When a port is closed, especially unexpectedly, suppliers immediately turn their attention to outbound shipments and their committed delivery dates. Through logistics collaboration on 麻豆原创 Business Network, suppliers and shippers can receive alerts about high-risk events affecting their shipments. They can also get alerts about deviations from planned or expected estimated deliveries. 麻豆原创 solutions can generate these alerts based on global risk data from services like and from global positioning and event data from carriers and logistics visibility service providers.

However, knowing about delays is only one part of a business plan for supply chain resilience. To respond effectively, shippers also need to know the business impact. Which deliveries are impacted? Which customers? 麻豆原创 Business Network Global Track and Trace helps keep global logistics visibility in the context of the business. This can enable shippers to identify and contact affected customers and prepare a recovery plan.

Similarly, buyers using 麻豆原创 solutions can track inbound shipments. They can see how changes to the delivery date of a purchase order or stock transfer order will impact their inventory levels and production plans. This helps them avoid stock-outs and production delays that can ripple through the supply chain to their customers.

2. Adjusting for Shipments That Are Routed Away from a Closed Port

When a port is closed by a disruption, shipments headed there must be rerouted to another port. In many instances, new arrangements must be made for ground transportation from that port.

With 麻豆原创 Business Network Global Track and Trace, shippers can see that the ocean vessel carrying their shipment has been rerouted. Then, they can use 麻豆原创 Business Network Freight Collaboration to cancel ground transport out of the closed port and tender an order from the new port to the desired destination.

3. What About Shipments Stuck at a Port Suddenly Closed by Disruption?

If a port is suddenly closed, containers will remain piled up at the port, waiting either for pickup by another ocean vessel or for urgent ground transport to another hub. When a port is closed for an extended period, shippers must make alternative plans.

To do this efficiently and effectively, shippers can use 麻豆原创 Transportation Management. The application helps them develop new plans to move their goods through new routes or with new carriers. This can include everything from load planning and balancing to leveraging new lanes and delivery methods.

Then, with a new plan in place, shippers can use 麻豆原创 Business Network Freight Collaboration to collaborate digitally with carriers to execute the plan.

Anticipating and Avoiding Future Disruptions

Using technology to react to a supply chain disruption is not new. Inventory and production planning solutions have long helped businesses adjust when supply is affected. However, it may be even more important to understand how technology enables organizations to anticipate and even avoid disruption before it impacts their supply chain. This is the essence of .

Recovery and Resilience

Unexpected tragedies like the one in Baltimore Harbor are never easy on the many people impacted personally and professionally. As its effects ripple out across the world, we are reminded of the power of resilience. Building resilience is an axiom of supply chain management. Unfortunately, the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge is yet another resilience test for the world鈥檚 supply chains.

In the end, I believe the people of Baltimore and surrounding communities will show us what resilience really means. I also know that as recovery is achieved, supply chain practitioners around the world will do what it takes to make safety a top priority as they deliver what is needed to keep world economies running.

Doug DeLuca is an 麻豆原创 Business Network product marketing manager.

麻豆原创 is positioned in the Leaders Quadrant based on our Ability to Execute and for the Completeness of our Vision.

We believe that this recognition confirms our strategy in Logistics, which is based on three pillars:

• Connecting every process and providing synchronized logistics execution to support highly efficient and fast paced fulfillment cycles
• Collaborating with a single network of carriers, digital forwarders, and visibility providers to spot risks and avoid disruptions and thereby provide best-in-class delivery experience
• Contextualizing every decision, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to optimize operations and to provide business insights

麻豆原创 Transportation Management is an integral part of the overall 麻豆原创 strategy and gives companies the ability to manage their end-to-end transportation processes from procurement through planning and execution to freight settlement with analytics to support each step.

We continue to innovate in 麻豆原创 Transportation Management based on our market analysis and even more importantly based on feedback from our global install base and ecosystem. Recent innovations include advancements in areas like sustainability, planning and optimization, supply chain execution, and generative AI.

麻豆原创 Transportation Management and 麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics enable logistics partners to collaborate with each other and provide visibility to all stakeholders throughout the shipment lifecycle and help manage risks as they arise through intelligent insights. We continue to grow 麻豆原创 Business Network, adding more carriers and additional networks to provide expanded coverage around the world and across all transportation modes.聽

As more customers evaluate 麻豆原创 Transportation Management, we continue to strategically expand our partner network to ensure our customers have access to an ecosystem that supports their operations no matter where they are in the world or how they move their freight. Our global partner network made up of systems integrators, business consultants, and technology providers help our customers manage their transportation transformations, whether they be system replacements, upgrades, greenfield deployments, or part of larger enterprise transformations.聽

鈥淥ur customers use 麻豆原创 Transportation Management and 麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics to manage transportation operations in more than 20 industries and in every corner of the world,” said Till Dengel, global head of Logistics and Manufacturing Product Marketing at 麻豆原创. 鈥淏ecause we look at logistics holistically, clients can confidently confirm their orders, knowing that fulfillment can be executed as promised, since ERP, warehousing, and transportation are always in sync.鈥�

鈥淎dopting logistics solutions from 麻豆原创 across our facilities in all our markets allowed us to optimize freight transportation,鈥� said Carlo No猫, Global Process and Applications Manager for Trade, Transport, and Logistics Division at Hitachi Energy Ltd. 鈥淲e can interact with our stakeholders and carriers in a digital way, helping us manage supply chain risk, enhance agility, and build supply chain resilience.鈥�

For more details on the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for TMS .

Bill King is senior product marketing manager for Logistics at 麻豆原创.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Meanwhile, as legislation to bolster transparency in supply chains , the digital platforms through which trading partners carry out interconnected operational processes have become indispensable for managing risk, advancing sustainability objectives, and verifying adherence to ethical business practices 鈥� even as volatility in international commerce gathers pace.

After rebounding from several years of logjammed seaports, idled factories, and quarantined workers, many businesses find that though COVID-19 has receded, disruption stubbornly persists. Yet visibility across all aspects of the supply chain 鈥� from sourcing raw materials and managing logistics capacity to securing working capital solutions and managing dispersed physical assets 鈥� remains paramount in the quest to ensure business continuity, instill operational resilience, and deepen competitive advantage.

To help provide businesses with the 360-degree visibility and collaborative capabilities they require across complex trading relationships, 麻豆原创 Business Network can connect people, processes, and systems across multiple enterprises to help digitize transactions, harness data-driven insights, and create transparent, resilient, and sustainable supply chains. Through , trading partners can gain process efficiencies, improve supply assurance, and achieve business process and regulatory compliance by increasing operational transparency. With , companies can achieve supply chain visibility by enabling plan-driven automation, optimizing capacity and inventory, and streamlining workflow. Aided by , shippers and carriers can work together in unison, track and trace goods in transit, and achieve transparency throughout the supply chain by optimizing logistics processes, increasing on-time deliveries, and mitigating third-party risk. Relying on , owners, operators, and service providers can strengthen joint processes and the flow of shared information through a single, consistent version of asset master data to help streamline asset maintenance processes and reduce maintenance costs. With the benefit of , trading partners can enhance payment security, free up working capital through early-payment discounts, and leverage access to capital bound up in outstanding receivables.

By linking together the routine business processes of trading partners, cloud-based networks establish the breadth of data necessary to apply predictive and generative AI applications to yield meaningful insights and outcomes. Through large language models and other forms of machine learning, cloud-based applications create new content with characteristics resembling that which precedes it. With every successive effort, sharpens its ability to tailor desired content.

As the world鈥檚 largest platform for business-to-business commerce, 麻豆原创 Business Network can present an ideal setting for generative AI, in that it helps bring together an extremely large volume of trading partners across hundreds of millions of transactions representing US$5.3 trillion in commerce annually. Later this year, generative AI capabilities in 麻豆原创 Business Network will be able to help detect errors and present automatic summaries when businesses create invoices. AI will also enable the network to help enrich catalog content and discovery posting responses for suppliers.

麻豆原创 Business Network has accumulated significant structured content over many years to help generate broad operational insights for trading partners. When buyers, suppliers, carriers, and financing solution providers share operational data with each other in real time, the mutual value they create can be exponential rather than additive, enabling all participants in commerce to plan ahead with confidence, continuity, and enduring resilience.

For further information on 麻豆原创 Business Network and how we are equipping enterprises large and small with the digital tools needed to counter disruption, visit .

J枚rn Keller is executive vice president and chief product officer of 麻豆原创 Business Network.

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Q: What are some of the trends and challenges manufacturing companies are facing today when it comes to logistics operations?

A: The logistics operations landscape has undergone significant changes, particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, the focus was on increasing efficiency and implementing just-in-time and just-in-sequence models to reduce inventory. However, the pandemic highlighted the need for supply chain resiliency alongside efficiency. Manufacturing companies now require greater foresight, agility, and flexibility to address unforeseen disruptions, such as supplier bankruptcies and border closures. Transparency, particularly regarding the origins and ethical sourcing of goods, has also emerged as a significant trend. Additionally, sustainability plays a crucial role, as companies aim to reduce emissions and waste and promote greater social equality across their value chains.

How have logistics operations for manufacturing companies evolved in recent years? And what kind of capabilities or technologies are they looking for to help them navigate the future of industrial manufacturing?

Logistics operations for manufacturing companies have undergone significant transformations in recent years. The focus has shifted from purely efficiency-driven approaches to those encompassing resiliency, visibility, and sustainability. Industrial manufacturing companies already rely on a high degree of automation in their processes. However, they are increasingly turning to robotics technologies to further enhance operational efficiency. By leveraging robots, workers can complete tasks such as material transportation and inventory management more quickly and efficiently.

Companies also seek greater supply chain transparency, requiring solutions that provide real-time tracking and tracing data to proactively manage disruptions and comply with sustainability regulations. Improved visibility into warehouse operations is another key capability. With advancements in big data technologies, business leaders can gain helpful insights and optimize processes for better resource allocation and reduction of waste. For example, visualizing movement patterns within the warehouse allows companies to identify and eliminate bottlenecks. Technology plays a crucial role in driving efficiency, agility, and sustainability in logistics operations.

How can 麻豆原创 help address these trends and challenges?

麻豆原创 offers an array of solutions to help address the emerging trends and challenges in logistics operations. For instance, the 麻豆原创 Warehouse Robotics solution can integrate the warehouse management system with various vendors, enabling the deployment of robots in the warehouse to help enhance efficiency and automation. 麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics can connect carriers and logistics providers through a unified network.

Within 麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics, several solutions are available. can provide a comprehensive overview of goods in motion, helping companies identify bottlenecks and focus on areas that require attention. helps improve transparency, visibility, sustainability, and efficiency by connecting the entire supply chain. can provide real-time insights into material and product availability, helping to reduce supply chain risks and optimize costs. It can also proactively raise alerts to users in case of any issues. Lastly, can connect business partners on a collaborative network, facilitating insights sharing across the value chain. With these technologies, business leaders can access the necessary capabilities to help enhance their logistics operations.

How does 麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics help generate value for the customer in the areas of compliance and sustainability?

麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics can generate tangible value for customers in the areas of compliance and sustainability. Once the information passes through the 麻豆原创 systems, business leaders can gain transparency into the origins and movement of goods, facilitating compliance with regulations and ethical sourcing standards. And customers can start aggregating the data, reporting on it, and acting on the insights. This includes capturing carbon emissions data, gaining more details around material traceability, and making sure that vendors do not use child labor 鈥� all with audit-ready data. Compliance and sustainability will only gain increasing importance in the years to come, and the companies of tomorrow must equip themselves with the proper tools today.

Explore showcasing eight that help you apply best and next practices, so you can manage a more agile, resilient, and sustainable logistics network.

Kelly Cannon is part of Content Creation & Strategy for the Content Lab at 麻豆原创.

麻豆原创 is positioned in the Leaders quadrant based on our ability to execute and for the completeness of our vision.

The 麻豆原创 Transportation Management application enables companies to manage their end-to-end transportation processes from procurement through planning and execution all the way to freight settlement. 麻豆原创 continues to enhance the application based on feedback from the global install base and based on market analysis. We provide innovations in areas such as sustainability, planning, and optimization, as well as a continued focus on integrating 麻豆原创 Transportation Management more deeply into our warehouse, logistics, and enterprise solutions for more tightly connected business processes.

麻豆原创 Transportation Management combined with 麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics provides a platform for companies to collaborate with their logistics partners, gain visibility into their shipments via the multiple connected visibility networks, and manage risks through intelligent insights. 麻豆原创 continues to expand 麻豆原创 Business Network by adding more carriers and partner networks in order to provide truly global coverage for all transportation modes.

The global 麻豆原创 partner network includes systems integrators, business consultants, and technology providers that expand the breadth and depth of how 麻豆原创 Transportation Management helps customers manage their transportation. We continue to strategically expand our partner network to help ensure our customers have access to an ecosystem that supports their operations no matter where they are in the world or how they move their freight.

鈥淥ur customers use our transportation management system to manage transportation operations in over 20 industries and in every region of the world,鈥� said Till Dengel, global head of Digital Logistics Solutions at 麻豆原创. “Because of our focus on logistics convergence, our clients are able to holistically manage their transportation operations to help ensure those transportation plans can be executed by other parts of the logistics process like warehousing and by our logistics partners.”

鈥淏y leveraging the 麻豆原创 S/4HANA ecosystem — and specifically with 麻豆原创 Transportation Management, 麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics, 麻豆原创 Integrated Business Planning, and 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud — we have created the ideal foundation for an intelligent, data-driven cooperative that provides the best value for our growers,鈥� said Steve Birgfeld, vice president of Information Technology and Services at Blue Diamond Growers.

Find more details on the latest .

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Offering more than 10,000 products to 50,000 customers in over 50 markets, BSH has a factory network of more than 40 sites and 150 warehouses and distribution centers. With the goal of making life better for customers through world-class home appliances and services, the company prides itself on product and supply chain innovation.

During the pandemic, answering the increasing demand for reliable products and delivery dates was particularly difficult. Moreover, changing long-term customer needs due to strong seasonality and new distribution channels were added as new challenges. The ongoing manual planning and execution processes at BSH were not enough to provide customers with the information they need, on-time and in the form they want.

Knowing the key to achieve risk resiliency in the ever-changing VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world is to enable transparency and visibility in supply chain operations, BSH Home Appliances Group chose the and to coordinate business planning and execution functions for enhancing the customer experience.

Building Risk Resilience in the VUCA World

Businesses are planning for the perfect world but executing in a VUCA world where things don鈥檛 always go to plan. As a global producer of home appliances, BSH needed to change the operating environment to match continuously increasing and changing demand to the restricted supply. To manage this, the company needed to build risk resilience within its supply chain operations.

BSH aimed to synchronize planning, manufacturing, and logistics operations to achieve high levels of transparency and visibility into supply chain operations for resolute and agile decision-making processes.

鈥淣o matter how well we can plan product allocation and order promising, if we鈥檙e not able to execute and deliver as planned, everything falls flat. We need synchronization and collaboration between our planning and execution functions,鈥� says Bernard Czap, senior project leader S&OP Transformation & Order Promising at BSH.

The company followed a comprehensive process integration 鈥� from planning to order processing and fulfillment 鈥� while integrating sales and operations, production planning, and scheduling processes. With this seamless integration, the company can now manage bottlenecks, with allocation concepts to handle scarcity, allowing it to be more reliable when it comes to order promising and fulfillment.

Keeping the Promises High and Stock Levels Low

The company primarily followed two approaches for enabling this transformation. The first approach was to replace the previous push-based planning process with a pull-based system. This means designing the entire supply chain to adapt to unexpected changes instead of predicting what product variants customers would purchase in the upcoming months.

The second approach was to achieve a lean production system, which was seen as the key to stability. This required the ability to level聽product mix and volume, for example, by producing the same appliances every Monday at the same time and achieving a fixed structure to balance production and streamline suppliers鈥� processes.

With , BSH now only produces the predefined quantity of appliances that have been removed from the warehouses. In other words, BSH produces what is sold. Also, by decoupling the inventory, BSH achieved a valuable buffer against unexpected disruptions by standardizing manufacturing operations. This enabled the company to reduce inventory costs while improving customer satisfaction.

鈥淲ith demand-driven material requirements planning, we are reducing our stocks and improving our ability to deliver to our customers at the same time,鈥� adds Michael Huber, global program lead for Digital Supply Chain at BSH.

Enable Demand-Driven Predictive and Prescriptive Planning

By leveraging with and establishing the sales and operations () process, BSH can use forecasts as input parameters for calculating its stock. This enables the company to ensure that there are the right products in the right amount at the right time.

鈥淲ith the 麻豆原创 Integrated Business Planning application for response and supply, we consistently combine the tactical operational planning with the actual execution of day-to-day business 鈥� in other words, supply chain execution and fulfillment,鈥� says Czap. 鈥淏ottleneck management, allocation concepts to handle scarcity, and to be much more reliable in what we tell our customers when it comes to order promising became the main capability to drive the company, especially in a notorious situation of worldwide supply shortages.鈥�

With the , BSH has improved forecasting and sales planning with automated and semiautomated functionalities for demand sensing, not only for long-term but also short-term forecasting of products. The helped bring cross-functional teams from across the company together to agree on the same figures. And the helped ensure and improve the demand-driven supply of its multi-level value chain network.

鈥淲ith 麻豆原创 Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain, we can now handle customer orders even better: which location must be supplied, when, and how so that production and logistics can coordinate their activities and deliver orders on time and as required,鈥� says Dietmar Baumann, global program lead for Digital Supply Chain at BSH.

After the implementation success in China, BSH is planning to roll out the response and supply application company-wide, including integration with all its markets, factories, warehouses, and material groups. To ensure that planning is properly executed on the delivery side, the company is in the early stages of employing 麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics, , and that can be integrated with 听补苍诲 .

Stormy seas continue to buffet global commerce, with disruption unlikely to subside anytime soon. Contributing factors include the gathering pace of extreme weather events, increasingly stringent for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting, escalating labor costs, ongoing geopolitical conflict, mutually reinforcing inflationary and recessionary pressures, and the trend toward regional fragmentation of trade 鈥� or what some analysts call 鈥�.鈥�

Amid such unrelenting volatility, how can enterprises instill resilience, foster collaboration, and harness sustainability throughout their operations and those of their trading partners? Through cloud-based digital networks linking together mission-critical business processes, organizations can achieve the degree of transparency needed to ensure continuity and extend competitive advantage in these uncertain times. A comprehensive view across interconnected operations, particularly those involving logistics, supply chain management, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, enables trading partners to track a product all the way from sourcing to manufacture to distribution 鈥� and everywhere in between.

With , shippers and carriers can collaborate to help optimize logistics processes, increase on-time deliveries, and mitigate supply risk. The network features three primary solutions: , , and .

Through 麻豆原创 Business Network Freight Collaboration, trading partners can achieve optimal logistics collaboration, capacity utilization, operational responsiveness, and real-time market insights. The solution enables shippers and carriers to jointly manage logistics transactions, exchange documents, and obtain insights into improving process efficiencies.

麻豆原创 Business Network Freight Collaboration offers three overarching capabilities: it allows shippers to digitally collaborate with trading partners on freight orders for contracting (tendering and subcontracting), execution (milestones and documents), and settlement processes. In addition, the solution facilitates the scheduling of dock appointments and gate processing, enabling businesses to orchestrate the loading and unloading of goods irrespective of who manages the yard or initiates the shipment. Meanwhile, 麻豆原创 Business Network Freight Collaboration offers seamless data integration into 麻豆原创 S/4HANA. All three of these digital capabilities enable organizations to extend their reach and deepen their collaboration with the trading partners on which they rely to create value, across different modes of transportation.

In a business climate highly prone to change, the ability to obtain actionable, instantaneous insights into the fulfillment of orders and transit of goods is essential. These insights can automatically be fed back into the planning system to mitigate the real-time impact of disruption and automate reactions to it. With 麻豆原创 Business Network Global Track and Trace, enterprises can strengthen their situational awareness by harnessing the power of geolocation tracking, enabling the early detection of potential disruptions in time to pursue alternatives and maintain production schedules. Businesses can improve their responsiveness through the immediate mitigation of exceptions made possible by transparency across trading partners.

Customer satisfaction, meanwhile, can improve thanks to businesses鈥� ability to promptly update the estimated time of arrival for shipments. Through a unified, integrated platform, trading partners can benefit from a holistic and consistent end-user experience across geographies and modes of transportation, transforming reactive supply chains into predictive ones.

Cloud technologies are helping supply chains to become not only more predictive but also more accountable. Material traceability has become increasingly important in recent years as governments 鈥� from Germany and to the and 鈥� enact legislation aimed at transparency and accountability in supply chains. Verifying the absence of forced labor, the level of carbon emissions, or the attainment of other environmental objectives is essential to comply not only with local regulations but also with stakeholder values.

To this end, 麻豆原创 Business Network Material Traceability enables companies to follow raw materials and finished products across all participants in the n-tier value chain. Initially developed with the food supply chain in mind but subsequently expanded to other industries, the solution draws upon the cloud-based analytics and integrated ERP data necessary to support targeted recalls or other compliance processes involving trading partners. As an example, 麻豆原创 Business Network Material Traceability is a major component of the Catena-X data ecosystem for the automotive industry, through which dozens of manufacturers, suppliers, dealer associations, and application developers have set a uniform standard for the secure sharing of data throughout the value chain.

Transparency must reach beyond the traditional supply chain to include logistics partners as well, so that actionable insights are accessible throughout the core operational processes on which trading partners mutually depend. Aided by cloud-based applications, businesses can minimize the risks associated with disruption through broad visibility. But only when visibility becomes actionable can true resilience be achieved. Only through tightly integrated, highly responsive supply chains can businesses foster the agility and accountability demanded by consumers, trading partners, shareholders, and regulators. Through 麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics, trading partners can achieve the superior execution necessary to plan together accurately, innovate collaboratively, and execute successfully.

Paige Cox is senior vice president, chief product officer, and head of 麻豆原创 Business Network.

Supply chains for consumer goods are finally showing signs of stabilization following a rollercoaster 18 months. This trend could be reinforced by China鈥檚 decision to moderate its zero-COVID policy that led to repeated shutdowns during the pandemic.

麻豆原创鈥檚 Take

鈥淲ith the holiday season in full flow, it is great to see some positive news come out of the supply chain,鈥� said Richard Howells, a supply chain expert at 麻豆原创. Howells also noted that Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping hit records.

According to the latest figures from Adobe Analytics, consumers spent $116.5 billion in e-commerce sales over the long Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend 鈥� a 1.7% increase from last year. That increase came despite a for consumers to do even more of their holiday shopping ahead of Halloween.

Along with other good news for U.S. consumers (and manufacturers), the threat of a rail strike receded after the Senate voted to impose a tentative labor deal 鈥� helping to save the holidays from supply chain mayhem.

In addition, recent numbers from the marine transport industry showed that there were zero container ships waiting offshore of the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles prior to Thanksgiving: 鈥淭he first time this has happened since October of 2020,鈥� Howells said.

Congestion in the East and Gulf Coast ports has also gradually eased over recent months. New York, New Jersey and Houston in particular have significantly reduced ship backlogs.

The easing of China鈥檚 zero-COVID policy following an unprecedented wave of protests should also help stabilize supply chains with fewer factory shutdowns and disruptions.

Meanwhile, a recent release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that inflation-adjusted consumer spending jumped 0.5% in October compared with September, the largest such increase since January. That鈥檚 welcome news for retailers that held a slew of promotions that month and reflects consumers鈥� eagerness to start holiday shopping far earlier than usual.

But it鈥檚 not all good news. Preliminary data from Adobe Analytics also suggests much weaker post-Thanksgiving spending than in previous years. Even if 2022 shakes out to be a banner year for holiday shopping, there is still the question of whether consumers will be able to afford their new purchases.

The surge in early holiday shopping could yet turn to boon the reverse logistics industry if consumers end up returning purchases in late December and early January that they realize they cannot afford.

Contact:
Ilaina Jonas, Senior Director of Global Public Relations, 麻豆原创
+1 (646) 923-2834, ilaina.jonas@sap.com

While this announcement grabbed plenty of attention, Ford is hardly unique: streamlined and resilient supply chains are increasingly recognized as a vital aspect of modern businesses, and the need for expertise in this area has never been so valued.

That is why 麻豆原创 is proud to be recognized by Gartner as a Leader in Magic Quadrant™ for Transportation Management Systems and Magic Quadrant™ for Warehouse Management Systems, and why we continue to invest in supply chain specialties that help businesses take the next step.

Companies across industries and around the world recognize not only the role of supply chains but that supply chain management is a competitive advantage and critical for long-term success. To reduce costs over the past decade, companies have increasingly looked to their ecosystem of partners, contract manufacturers and logistics service providers to optimize their supply chains. These steps revolutionized many parts of the business world, lowering consumer costs and connecting suppliers over vast distances to optimize manufacturing.

Global supply chains can reduce costs but also can increase supply chain risks. Between 2019 and 2020, overall supply chain disruptions increased by 14%, . This is attributed to a number of geopolitical and unprecedented natural events 鈥� chief among them the global COVID-19 pandemic, followed in quick succession by events like Brexit, a historic blockage of the Suez Canal, and an increase in extreme weather around the world. As a result, there have been multiple material shortages, from wood to minerals to parts such as semiconductors.

With this increased complexity and the direct impact on consumers, supply chains have been at the center of conversations far outside the board room. And just like at Ford, the need for chief supply chain officers is more widely recognized than ever. Supply chains are now understood as a strategic aspect of business that can differentiate a company from its competition and help to solve some of today鈥檚 thorny business conundrums.

Organizations turn to experienced partners like 麻豆原创 as they re-imagine their supply chains.

麻豆原创 Offers the Expertise Needed Today

To make today鈥檚 supply chains work requires a strategic perspective, deep process experience, and technology leadership. 麻豆原创 has all three. For well over a decade, Gartner has identified 麻豆原创 as a Leader in its annual rating of 鈥�.鈥�

In the most recent report, 麻豆原创 not only maintained its position, but held more than a 15% gap in market share between 麻豆原创 and the next ranked vendors.

We believe this rating demonstrates that 麻豆原创 is a true leading market provider in the supply chain and procurement space, and that customers can rest assured that one of the most vital aspects of business today is in expert hands.

Logistics Make Supply Chains Sing

Over the past two years, the role and importance of logistics in supply chain management has been elevated significantly. Many companies tend to begin their business transformation by focusing on supply chain solutions, such as warehousing and transportation, which can have a quick and noticeable impact.

As one of the leading providers in driving supply chain convergence, 麻豆原创 offers a seamlessly integrated supply chain execution platform consisting of the 麻豆原创 Transportation Management, 麻豆原创 Extended Warehouse Management, and 麻豆原创 Yard Logistics applications.

麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics extends business process execution beyond company boundaries and synchronizes processes with carriers, third-party logistics, and other trading partners. This holistic approach, along with thousands of recognized companies using the solutions, is why 麻豆原创 has been recognized as Leader by Gartner for eight consecutive years.

麻豆原创 was positioned as a Leader in 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant reports, which we believe proves 麻豆原创鈥檚 continued commitment and investment in supply chain management.

Expertise Today, Resiliency Tomorrow

It takes leadership to look to the future, taking the time and expertise to adapt for the long haul rather than reacting to immediate concerns. 麻豆原创鈥檚 continued recognition as a Leader by Gartner in many areas of supply chain management show how the company prioritizes supply chain, the expertise it has built up over time, and the resiliency it takes to be an industry leader.

While no business can know what鈥檚 to come, they can prepare for next steps by partnering with today鈥檚 leaders. Join 麻豆原创 in building the resilient supply chains modern businesses need now 鈥� and in the future.

Till Dengel is global head of Digital Logistics Solution Management at 麻豆原创.

GARTNER and Magic Quadrant are a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

The Mississippi river is a vital transport route for U.S. agricultural commodities, carrying 92% of U.S. agricultural exports and 78% of the global exports of feed grains and soybeans. But water levels in some parts of the river are now so low that commercial traffic has been halted and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been called in to begin emergency dredging.

With no sign of an end to the drought in the Midwest, water levels in the Mississippi are now near 30-year lows because of a lack of rain in the Ohio River Valley and the Upper Mississippi. As a result, U.S crop exports at Louisiana Gulf Coast terminals were at their lowest level in nine years for the first week of October, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and shipping prices have soared.

麻豆原创’s Take

Historically, shipping along the Mississippi river and its tributaries has been less expensive than other forms of transportation, but this hasn鈥檛 been true in recent weeks. As Richard Howells, vice president of solution management for digital supply chain at 麻豆原创 notes: 鈥淲e plan in the perfect world and we execute in the real world.鈥�

With parts of the river unpassable for big barges, he says grain shippers in particular have been forced to look at alternative modes of transport to move the grain to the port. 鈥淵ou may be able to use trains to take the load part way and trucks for the last mile,鈥� he says.

That, he suggests, is easier if the shipper has clear and up-to-date information. Providing that kind of data visibility, control and risk resiliency is the purpose of聽. 鈥淲ith connected data — including freight, fleet and logistics — you can re-plan with an updated schedule based on available routes and vehicles.”

鈥淲hen there鈥檚 a disruption, companies have to move quickly to identify which trucking companies and railways offer the right services and are available on short notice,鈥� Howells says. In particular shippers need to establish whether they have contracts with these logistics service providers already, or contacts that could broker introductions to new vendors.

鈥淚deally, you want to foster relationships with a trusted network of business partners so you have more choices and a faster response when the unexpected happens,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f your grain is sitting in a stranded barge waiting for the dredger to deepen the water, which customers are expecting that order?鈥�

Once contingency plans are in place, the next step is to figure out whether the grain will arrive on time for each handover between trains, trucks and the outbound ships sitting in the ports. 鈥淯pdated information and visibility at every leg of the journey helps you keep customers informed, resetting their expectations so they can adapt their operations as well,鈥� says Howells.

Contact:
Joellen Perry, Head of聽Global Public Relations, 麻豆原创
+1 (626) 265-0370,聽joellen.perry@sap.com, PT

And if your business is involved in buying or selling products, you鈥檒l be glad to learn about Shippeo’s , a fantastic offering on 麻豆原创 Store.

Speeding Up Digitalization in B2B Transportation Management

To get on board, I spoke with Lucien Besse, COO of Shippeo, which he co-founded with a group of ex-colleagues and friends in 2015. At the time, he and CEO Pierre Khoury were colleagues at a private equity firm where Besse led the restructuring of companies in the transportation industry. They recognized that the enormous complexity of transportation networks made it extremely difficult for shippers and receivers of goods to get real-time information about shipments in transit. And while digitalization was well underway in the business-to-consumer market, where consumer expectations for real-time shipping info are high, the business-to-business market lagged far behind.

鈥淭here are so many different parties and stakeholders involved 鈥� thousands of shippers, independent carriers, freight forwarders, logistics service providers, and intermediaries in between,鈥� he told me. 鈥淚n Europe, there are more than 600,000 trucking companies alone. A crucial shipment might be sitting in a warehouse waiting for a truck to pick it up, but the status was like a black box.鈥�

With a solid business plan and a clear path to developing a solution, Shippeo attracted investors and launched its first product, a mobile app for truck drivers, before evolving into a multimodal visibility platform.

Looking Down the Road

The vision was much broader: to build a platform aggregating data from all those transportation players, all using different systems, to provide access to the same information for real-time visibility. Toward that end, one of Shippeo鈥檚 first steps was to approach 麻豆原创.

鈥淲e wanted to get as close as possible to 麻豆原创,鈥� Besse said. 鈥淚t was critical for us to have 麻豆原创 as a partner, simply because 麻豆原创 is so big in the transportation space.鈥�

麻豆原创 invited Shippeo to join the 麻豆原创.iO Foundry program in Paris, which provided the opportunity not only to incubate the product, but to align the companies鈥� visions for solutions in the supply chain landscape.

Shippeo is now a global leader and a European specialist in real-time transportation visibility, tracking more than 28 million shipments in 75 countries, and integrating with more than 900 types of data connections. With API integration to and global track-and-trace functionality, the Shippeo platform enables trading partners to collaborate. Users gain a global view of their supply chain and access to carrier information 鈥� including road, ocean, rail, and air.

鈥淚t enables them to connect planning information with the status on the ground and compare theory to reality,鈥� Besse explained. The platform is deeply integrated in transportation management systems and uses GPS technology and a proprietary algorithm for accuracy in estimated time of arrival. That鈥檚 how customers can use the Shippeo solution predictively to anticipate issues and take action.

鈥淔or example,鈥� he continued, 鈥渁 production line might be completely disrupted by a one- or two-hour delay. With an alert ahead of time, plans can be adjusted to reduce or eliminate the downtime.鈥� It also helps customers reduce their carbon footprint with key information for route planning, which is at the top of the CEO agenda and a key element of Shippeo鈥檚 future vision.

For that reason and many others, the timing couldn鈥檛 be more perfect. The UK departure from trade agreements with the EU held up countless shipments at customs, with truckers fuming and shippers and receivers desperate for information. Remember the container ship stuck in the Suez Canal? I could go on, but the Shippeo plaform helps alleviate some of these problems.

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U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order creating an emergency board to help settle disputes between major freight rail carriers and their unions. But thwarting a strike will not resolve an industry crisis: a severe labor shortage.

麻豆原创鈥檚 Take

North America鈥檚 major freight railroads — BNSF, Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, CSX Transportation, Kansas City Southern Railway, Norfolk Southern Railway and Union Pacific Railroad — are suffering labor shortages equal to those of the air travel industry.

Bulk commodities, such as energy, agriculture, automobiles, and components, account for more than half of the freight moved by trains. Rail carriers transport 27.9% of U.S. freight, second to the 39.6% delivered by road, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

While retiring engineers and track workers account for a major part of the labor attrition, past layoffs and demanding schedules are also part of a very complicated problem.

鈥淚n the railroad industry, folks were let go,鈥� said Timothy Motter, 麻豆原创 solutions manager for the . 鈥淣ow that those folks have been let go, they don鈥檛 necessarily want to come back. Railroad work is very difficult.鈥�

Loop Capital, an investment bank that follows the railway industry, estimates that the industry is short about 4,100 workers, or about 9.4% of the needed workforce.

鈥淩etention and hiring are not easy in the logistics industry in general, especially if you鈥檙e telling someone that they can鈥檛 go home, and that their schedule is up in the air every day,鈥� Motter said.

Port delays have made scheduling for intermodal shipping 鈥� whereby shipping containers are loaded from one form of transportation to another 鈥� even more of a nightmare.

鈥淒elays in getting containers through the port system and onto a train are really wrecking schedules,鈥� Motter said. 鈥淚f I can鈥檛 get a container on my train, I can鈥檛 fill up the train, but I still have to move the train on a scheduled basis.鈥�

Like airlines, the railroad industry depends on tight schedules to keep operations staffed and profitable. But global supply chain and logistics problems have thrown that into havoc, making recruiting more difficult.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really difficult to bring someone back into the industry,鈥� Motter said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a considerable amount of training that needs to occur to make sure workers are ready to handle themselves. To bring on a new employee is really difficult too. What happens to the new employee in a unionized industry? Well, they get the worst choices for work schedules, typically late or even in the middle of the night.鈥�

The railroad industry鈥檚 chief competitor is trucking. To make railroads more competitive, the industry implemented a new way of shipping called Precision Scheduling Railroading (PSR) several years ago. Instead of allowing trains to sit still until fully loaded, PSR now focuses on loading individual cars. This enables the railroads to operate more meanly. But it also led to layoffs.

According to Motter, the shippers and unions say that 鈥淧SR cut headcounts too deep.鈥�

Contact:
Ilaina Jonas, Senior Director of Global Public Relations, 麻豆原创
+1 (646) 923-2834,聽ilaina.jonas@sap.com