Boosting Productivity: The Benefits of Automation and AI for Consumer Products Companies

The role of technology has become inexorably intertwined with supply chain success in the consumer products industry. In a recent IDC study looking at the correlation between digital transformation maturity and business performance, companies more advanced in their transformation journey outperformed their less advanced brethren by two times for revenue and three times for profits.

This study was not for supply chain or consumer products specifically, but the correlation is nonetheless quite profound and offers a quantifiable answer to the "why transform" question. At the same time, persistent gaps remain that constrain progress, including difficulties in driving better collaboration both within the consumer products company and with its suppliers and customers and a lack of visibility/agility to react to disruptions. In many ways, collaboration and visibility are inexorably intertwined.

A company may see a problem but lack the necessary collaborative tools to quickly socialize it with suppliers or customers resulting in disruption. Or a disruption may occur beyond the four walls and the supply chain is not made aware in time to react effectively. Indeed, there are many challenges faced by the consumer products enterprise in a post-COVID-19 pandemic environment. Disruption continues to be front and center, with companies looking for optimal ways to balance a long list of priorities.

For those of us who have worked in and around the industry for many decades, the transition from things that were aspirational for consumer products companies 20 years ago to being practical/attainable today means finally solving persistent challenges and addressing business problems. Indeed, as we have noted many times in the IDC industry research, end users do not think in terms of technology for technology's sake; they instead see it as a set of tools in the toolbox to solve problems. At the same time, many of these tools are critical elements of solving problems — thus the inexorable intertwining.