Supply Chain Media analyzes the value of predictions

Supply Chain Media is analyzing the added value of forecasts through its own Future Facts Survey. At the start of every new year, various people and companies attempt to predict what is going to happen in the coming 12 months and beyond. And this year is no exception. Numerous predictions were made in December 2019 and January 2020, covering a wide range of topics. Governments make use of predictions when creating legislation, of course, and the business world loves predictions too.

Analysts such as Gartner and Forrester regularly predict the future of supply chain. In fact, when Supply Chain Media dug deeper, we found more than ten different organizations that think they know where supply chain might be heading in the coming years.

Some of the predictions are very general and only describe a probable trend in the market. For example whether the use of blockchain will increase or decrease. Others are highly precise and are backed up by numbers and percentages.

For example, International Data Cooperation (IDC) predicted the following in 2019: “To lessen stress on the service supply chain, by 2023, 25% of OEMs will leverage blockchain to source spare parts, improving accuracy of usable parts by 60% and lowering expedite costs by 45%.” This illustrates that analysts use many different approaches to arrive at their predictions of the future.

Future Facts Survey

At Supply Chain Media, we have been interested in what people really think about these predictions for some time now. What is the perfect balance between accuracy and relevance, for instance? We would also like to know what companies actually do with such predictions. Perhaps they do not use them at all, or maybe they regard predictions as useful for benchmarking purposes or even for devising a new corporate strategy.

To find the answers to these and other questions, we have created a short survey to gather the thoughts and opinions of supply chain professionals. Are you willing to help us out? Follow this link and tell us what you think about supply chain predictions. We will reveal and discuss the results in future editions of Supply Chain Media publications!

Read als the Seven predictions about robotic process automation in 2020.