Arvato Supply Chain Solutions has established a new unit with almost 300 employees, a significant milestone in driving forward its digitalisation strategy and developing new solutions and products for customers.
“With the digital unit, we are strengthening our market position by combining two factors – the development of digital offerings for clients and their end customers and the implementation of digital solutions along the logistics value chain,” said Frank Schirrmeister, CEO of Arvato Supply Chain Solutions.
Arvato Supply Chain Solutions is an innovative and internationally leading service provider in the field of supply chain management and e-commerce. Its customers stand to benefit even more from industry-specific digital solutions and products in the future.
“In our corporate structure, we are organised by industry and have deep industry and logistics expertise in these areas. With the new digital unit, we are now creating competencies that dovetail this know-how with digital expertise at all levels,” explained Boris Scholz, who leads the new unit as Chief Digital Officer. “The better our customers can serve their customers, the more competitive they are,” he added.
One project that’s already met with a positive response from customers in the fashion industry is the Customer Experience Cloud, which aims to provide end customers with a more convenient buying experience when shopping online.
Scholz said:: “This includes, for example, requested date deliveries, comprehensive tracking and tracing information also for marketplace orders and international shipments, in-store apps to support omnichannel processes, analysis functions, and pre-registration of returns with the option of triggering credits directly with the first scan by the carrier or parcel station. It’s a digital product with clear added value for customer loyalty, because in all processes the customer acts as the contact person for the online shopper, while we handle the services in the background.”
The basis and increasingly important factor for such digital solutions is the use and analysis of existing data. Arvato Supply Chain Solutions can draw on an extensive stock of information for this purpose, as the company manages the entire value chain and thus has data from the warehouse, end customers, clients, suppliers and transport service providers.
“There is still a lot of potential lying dormant here, which will be turned into real added value in the future by bringing together data experts and developers,” said Scholz. “One current development, among others, is the so-called AI Control Tower. This is a modular digital solution that uses artificial intelligence to provide our colleagues in logistics with important decision-making aids – for example, in better shift planning, the optimization of pick and pack processes, or the visualization of shipments in outgoing goods that are assigned a particular priority. Employees can make system-supported, data-based decisions that previously had to be made by foremen based on their wealth of experience.”
Arvato also uses AI and algorithms in the area of digital image recognition. A pilot project is currently underway for the camera-based analysis of returns. In addition, this technology will be used in the future for automated quality assurance in additional logistics services – for example, in the repackaging of goods.
Scholz said: “We have laid the foundations for promising future growth with the new unit – and we have a customer base where I am more than optimistic that we can land successfully with digital projects. We haven’t even tapped into that potential yet.”
Frank Schirrmeister (pictured above) agrees: “Our vision is to develop Arvato Supply Chain Solutions into the internationally operating supply chain company with the greatest customer orientation and the strongest focus on data and IT. With our consistent ‘Cloud Only’ strategy and the establishment of the digital unit, we have laid a very solid foundation for this.”
For more information, visit: www.arvato-supply-chain.com
