Imagine productivity multiplied one-hundred-fold via machines. With that, imagine happier customers and more balanced employees. Your business is like a well-oiled machine – because it is one. Even all the behind-the-scenes stuff is taken care of. Your facilities and practices are all compliant with regulation, and you barely had to lift a finger.
Consumer goods boils down to more than a constant battle for more production at less cost. When looking at this market in the context of digital transformation, it is hard to decouple a quality product from these things.
That is because, in the supplier of the future, no single aspect of your company can carry your business on its own. Everything that makes your business “quality” goes hand-in-hand. A smiling customer at the end of a product life cycle may depend on the money an executive is spending to keep the electricity running at one of several factories.
Spotting that inefficiency may have to do with analytics. That analytics capability would allow you to observe and manage key metrics that affect the whole of your operation.
Today, the details matter more than they ever have. This can sound like a headache to some, but for business leaders who want to be more fruitful and profitable in the future, it is music to their ears.
This is the power of digital transformation in consumer goods. It is like the invention of moving assembly lines, squared. With assembly lines, you had automated production and distribution of a product. With digital transformation, you’re automating virtually your entire company.
Businesses are more cognizant of this right now than ever, especially with COVID-19 slowing down assembly lines and closing stores. There is certainly less room for mistakes than there has been in decades. But that means there is also more opportunity to succeed.
On top of that, you have the regular concerns of limiting waste, meeting demand, improving efficiency, better compliance, and overall better sales for your bottom line.
Speeding up and improving your processes is just the beginning. Here are some of the ways the consumer goods industry will change beyond that.
Improving Your Data
Big data is a treasure trove for improving your return on investment. Many companies are sitting on piles of information about customer preferences and other ways to improve their business, but they are not utilizing data to its fullest potential.
Right now, artificial intelligence is improving software’s ability to sift through data and find items that are useful for companies to make effective decisions. Better data in this way leads to better products and operations. Data analytics can give the company a clear end-to-end view of products, from production to delivery.
With this capability, you will be able to spot bottlenecks in your processes and any issues with your product itself. This helps not only to produce a better, more flawless product; it also helps you get that product shipped faster.
But that’s just the beginning…
Better Compliance
Something that gets so little spotlight, but matters so greatly to your company’s success, is compliance.
Many executives are not exactly caught up on how far technology has come to support their compliance efforts. Consumer goods is one of the most strictly regulated industries in America. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission does everything it can to keep consumers from safety hazards, always updating its standards to lower the frequency of accidents.
To keep up with its regulation, consumer goods providers need to tighten their processes to keep up with the demands. Using an enterprise resource planner can give you top-down visibility into your company’s production line. You are in the driver’s seat when it comes to just how compliant your product is with regulation.
Better Collaboration
We’re not talking about simple collaboration between people. Now, you have the opportunity to collaborate with smart machines. The Internet of Things has made it possible for companies to trace a product’s assembly from start to finish.
Especially if a company is vertically-integrated, it’s possible for you to attach a sensor to every item in your production line. Many businesses do this, but few are using artificial intelligence to tease out the analytics capability provided by these technologies.
Examples of things you can track for improved decision-making include humidity and temperature as factors of efficiency in shipping and storage.
All of this data, and others like it, collected through a system of sensors and scoured by artificial intelligence, can result in a full view of your company with more actionable analytics after it has all come together through the cloud.
Your Holistic Company
With the consumer goods industry, the thread running through all of these processes is the word “automation.” While we have had automation in some form or other for decades, the gift of digital transformation is not just more efficient processes, but a better-quality product.
But there’s even more. With predictive analytics, you are not just ensuring safe, effective shipment of products going out today, you are preventing the deterioration of your production line by spotting problems as they arise, before they can go ignored and evolve into greater problems somewhere in the distant future.
With a bigger picture of customer preferences as well, you can say ahead of new trends that come up and beat competitors to the punch.
Digitization Is a Human Process
Optimizing your operations for a new digital age can be daunting. But something people often miss is that this is about more than having the latest gadgets. This is about bringing your company together, for a more unified brand and product than you had previously.
Technology does not eliminate people from the equation, it augments those people and their skills.
Finding the right people to usher new technologies in at your company is a key part of the puzzle.
That is why Newman’s International Associates finds the talent for you. We’re a team of digital experts from around the world.
Our goal is to supply the world’s greatest talent to the world’s greatest companies. We can help your company do that today. Contact us.
