Customer expectations at an all-time high: only 28% of businesses excel

Hamburg, 23 February 2023. Managing peaks in today’s digital economy continues as a top priority for supply chains worldwide. The latest peak season has come to an end, but growing consumer expectations require flexible fulfillment strategies at any time. The Körber Supply Chain Benchmarking Report reinforces the mission-critical role of the supply chain. However, while 92% of supply chain professionals recognize that supply chain performance has a critical impact on customer satisfaction, only 28% excel in end-customer experience.

Customers want to pay less, receive their items faster and utilize easy buying and returns processes, reveals the Körber report. The results provide detailed insight into the state of the industry and the mechanics to respond to ever increasing consumer expectations on price, speed, convenience and choice. The survey grouped participating companies into four maturity levels (leader, advanced, developing and initiating) and indicated that 72% of companies struggle to keep pace with end customer demand.

Leading companies, in contrast, look beyond warehouse and transportation operations with technologies to address their end-to-end operations, especially through the use of order management systems (OMS) to optimize order orchestration and fulfillment across locations at the network level. Additionally, businesses are starting to address sustainability aspects across the supply chain, especially with a key focus on transportation optimization, which has a strategic or high priority for 89% of businesses overall.

“Investing in technology that enhances the end-customer experience is becoming more critical to meet the overall demand of an increasingly complex and fluid supply chain environment, explains Rene Hermes, EVP and CMO Software at Körber Business Area Supply Chain. “Successful companies need to conquer a highly competitive, crowded marketplace where the customer has many options to quickly move on from companies that can’t deliver. The right digital tools and technologies are pivotal to add speed, reliability, and agility to their end-to-end operations to consistently exceed customer expectations.”

Körber turns challenges into opportunities with a depth and breadth of technologies and expertise to conquer supply chain complexity. This includes an order management system plus point of sale (POS), product information management (PIM), dropship, and more, together with warehouse management, warehouse control, robotics, voice and simulation technologies to help streamline supply chain processes and elevate the end-customer experience.

The Körber Benchmarking Report surveyed more than 200 companies in North America and Europe with greater than 500 employees and is part of a broader research initiative in cooperation with leading international analysts. Full findings are available at benchmarking.koerber-supplychain.com. The site also offers a rapid self-assessment to provide visitors a view into the maturity of their own supply chain operations.