In a time when discovering ways to improve supply chain resilience is a mainstream topic from the White House to the farmhouse, Cleo, a global supply chain solutions provider and the pioneer and global leader of the Ecosystem Integration software category, has some encouraging news for all of us.
New research indicates that technology investments are increasing organizations’ ability to deliver on their supply chain commitments, resulting in accelerating profitability, revenue growth, competitive differentiation, and supply chain efficiency. What’s more, the ROI of these investments is seen quickly.
Specifically, Cleo’s just published 2024 Ecosystem Integration Global Market Report outlines these findings:
- 97% of companies surveyed invested in supply chain technologies in 2023.
- 81% stated their supply chain investment delivered business improvement in less than 24 months, with 35% getting benefits in the same year.
- Roughly 80% indicated they increased revenue in the same year they made supply chain technology investments.
- More than half (51%) will invest $1 million or more in supply chain technology in 2024.
This Report, based on research conducted in late 2023 by Dimensional Research®, is Cleo’s fifth Ecosystem Integration market survey in as many years. It presents findings from business and supply chain technology executives around the world who were asked how supply chain technology investments were impacting their company’s ability to deliver on revenue-critical business commitments.
“A company’s supply chain is simply a series of commitments that tether across an ecosystem and must be delivered upon,” said Tushar Patel, CMO at Cleo. “And for companies to uphold those critical business commitments, they need to consistently invest in their supply chain technology, otherwise they stand to take a hit to their relationships – impacting their bottom line.”
In fact, 52% of companies reported lower profits from failing to meet business objectives in 2023. Respondents indicated such failures were due to:
- External conflicts like Inflation, unforeseen global events, and labor shortages.
- Internal conflicts like supplier, fulfillment, and manufacturing problems.
- Trading partners failing to uphold business commitments.
“Just like consumer expectations evolve, so do companies’ business objectives and ecosystem commitments. But often times these evolutions emerge due to various supply chain disruptions,” Patel continued. “By leveraging technology to build greater resilience to supply chain disruptions, a company is better able to take control of its supply chain commitments and deliver on their promises – resulting in stronger relationships and trust with their ecosystem.”
In fact, many companies are planning on doing precisely that. To further improve their businesses through continued supply chain investment, the three business objectives companies say they are placing greatest emphasis on in 2024 include:
- Improving the customer experience (50%).
- Fostering stronger relationships with trading partners (35%).
- Building resilience to supply chain disruptions (30%).
Not only do these three objectives tie back to delivering and exceeding supply chain commitments, they also point to specific ways in which companies plan to continue getting better:
- Improved communications (38%).
- Improved data sharing (33%).
- Better overall support, i.e., onboarding, issue resolution, visibility (24%).
These and many other key trends and insights are explained in-depth in the Cleo 2024 Ecosystem Integration Global Market Report.
What is Ecosystem Integration?
Ecosystem Integration is a category of software, principally for supply-chain-driven companies, where a single cloud-based platform is used for file-based, EDI, and application integration to optimize end-to-end integration processes across a dynamic network of trading partners, applications, suppliers, customers, and marketplaces.
Ecosystem integration takes the best of B2B integration and iPaaS technologies and combines them with a layer of visibility that empowers organizations to optimize business processes and quickly resolve errors when they occur. Its value lies in driving cost savings through B2B process automation, giving companies the agility and control needed to outsmart supply chain disruption and create value for their businesses in myriad ways.
