The Economist predicts that by 2017, multinational corporations expect Asia Pacific to contribute 32% of their global revenues. However, trading across the region is complicated by distance, borders, cultural diversity and regulatory regimes that hamper effective monitoring and visibility of products as goods move from source to consumers. Cloud computing may be the answer to achieving flexible, responsive and cost-effective supply chains.
Intra-Asia trade, which accounts for 25% of Asia's total US$6 trillion annual exports, is on the rise as companies see growth opportunities regionally. Full visibility across the entire supply chain can help solve many problems such as inventory and asset mismatch, high operating cost, protect against damage and counterfeiting, improve customer satisfaction and streamline reverse logistics and product recalls.
Asia Pacific has more than 200,000 distributors working with 16 million shops to serve four billion consumers across region. The lack of meaningful information infrastructure means that as soon as the product is delivered to the first wholesaler, the manufacturer/ logistics provider has no visibility of the goods' location, status or quality, leading to practical issues around inventory control, trade funds claims and product recalls.
What is needed is a step change in collaboration -- a simpler approach to provide visibility across the chain and enable effective communications between all stakeholders at an appropriate cost.