It accentuated organizations’ strengths and weaknesses alike. Think about the supply chain snafus that have occurred since the pandemic. According to Fortune, 94% of Fortune 1000 companies experienced COVID-19-related supply chain disruptions.
It’s obviously easier to plan for things like an uptick in the supply chain caused by back-to-school shopping, for example, rather than unplanned events, such as an unprecedented need for vast quantities of toilet paper, hand sanitizer and Lysol wipes.
Nevertheless, resilience matters, regardless of your size or industry sector. As such, supply chains, which last year proved to be highly susceptible to disruption from planned and unplanned events, should consider implementing solutions to be ready for such times.
Advantages of a cloud transition abound
When your warehouse management system (WMS) is cloud-enabled, you have much more resiliency than if you are working from a traditional, on-premises one. Moving your supply chain IT systems to the cloud eliminates the need for in-house IT infrastructure and can significantly increase supply chain resilience with built-in capabilities of modern cloud platforms.
In fact, cloud is expected to comprise 55% of total WMS revenue by 2025. Further, recent research shows the WMS market is expected to reach $8.1 billion by 2028 – a CAGR or 15.3% from 2021 to 2028, with increased transition toward cloud-based WMSs.
Here are six key benefits of adopting our cloud-based WMS:
- Unmatched scalability – Cloud enables you to increase or decrease system capacity to accommodate seasonal events – think Black Friday during an upswing in shopping or mid-January for the post-holiday (retail) supply chain blues.
- Unrivaled uptime and reliability. Since one-size service level agreements (SLAs) don’t fit all, the best cloud providers enable you to select the most suitable parameters that include response times and uptime commitments – ones that work specifically for you.
- Revealing results from machine learning (ML) and analytics. Since cloud solutions are perfectly suited to collect and analyze vast amounts of data using ML, system performance can be measured against KPIs. Data analytics from cloud are then used to pinpoint normal behavior and to detect and resolve issues well before they impact system performance.
- Improved data and business continuity – Cloud platforms provide advanced backup, failover and disaster recovery to protect your systems from hardware and software disruptions and failures – giving you peace of mind that you’ll have ongoing system availability. Even when Mother Nature intervenes with fires, earthquakes and hurricanes, cloud-based platforms keep you going.
- Enhanced security – Cloud solutions provide comprehensive, multilayer security along with encrypted communications. When choosing a provider, consider a company whose data centers are certified according to ISO 27001 and 9001, and SOC 1 and 2 – demonstrating your internal financial controls will be properly designed and operate effectively over a certain period.
- 24/7, work-from-anywhere accessibility – Particularly beneficial in today’s environment where people work on-premises or remote, your staff can access and operate cloud-based supply chain systems anywhere there’s an internet connection. Even when local system access is disrupted, this ensures continued, uninterrupted connection.
Cloud solutions pack unprecedented power – enabling greater resiliency
WMSs and other supply chain solutions are mission-critical, enabling businesses of all kinds and sizes to be more resilient and therefore, more successful. But building and maintaining resilient supply chains with in-house IT resources is often challenging because of the expense, effort and expertise required. That’s why many organizations adopt and implement cloud-hosting systems. They provide greater flexibility, business continuity, resiliency, security and more.
When it comes to the right WMS solution, consider choosing a company with cloud-specific experience and expertise – one that has helped hundreds of companies make the transition to the cloud so they could increase their resiliency.
Get more information on how to improve your supply chain resilience.
