Did you share a Thanksgiving meal with friends and family last week? Then some of you may have cut into a 15-pound turkey while you gave thanks for all the ways technology gave us the opportunity to avoid the crazy crowds on Black Friday.
Technology hasn’t just made things easier for those who want to find the best post-Thanksgiving deals. According to “What Happens When Thanksgiving Turkey Meets the Digital Supply Chain,” published on Forbes last week, technology played a role in getting that turkey to your table, too.
Gobble, Gobble, Brrrr
Richard Howells, SAP brand contributor, noted that turkey is the second biggest cost for consumers during Thanksgiving. (Travel was the first.) In 2017, 52 million turkeys were consumed in the U.S. on Thanksgiving Day.
“This is big business,” Howells wrote. In fact, it’s $4.85 billion of business. And for supply chains around the U.S., that big business comes with big challenges, too. Turkeys are perishable, which makes them difficult to stockpile.
“Raising millions of turkeys in time for delivery on Thanksgiving Day is simply not feasible,” he wrote. So, the solution, which is to freeze them, often costs suppliers more to produce, warehouse, and deliver that turkey than its final price at the grocery store. “This,” he wrote, “means many producers are actually losing money to accommodate their customers. With integrated business planning and digital supply chain technology, however, producers just might be able drive down costs enough to achieve profitability.”
That’s a Smart Turkey
Advanced analytics and logistics applied to an entire supply network can help organizations optimize their inventory. Here’s how.
Emerging technologies such as machine learning allow companies to gain insights into what drives demand and plan their supply chain to meet any spikes or valleys. And the Internet of Things (IoT) can help track delivery routes, monitor temperature control, and provide predictive data to maintain machinery like refrigerator compressors. We saw similar results in this story about how Costco used machine learning to save nearly $100 million across 30 stores by increasing productivity and reducing food waste.
Track Your Turkey
This same technology can be used to further maximize profits in one sector of the Thanksgiving Day turkey market that is highly profitable: fresh turkeys,” Howells wrote. Among other technologies, he pointed to blockchain as a way to track the chain of custody, ensuring freshness and boosting consumers’ confidence. Cargill ran a pilot blockchain program last Thanksgiving that allowed customers to track their turkey’s origins.
A digital supply chain can drive success for an organization whether or not it’s serving up turkey.
To talk turkey about supply chains, join us on March 18–20 in San Antonio for the SAP-Centric Supply Chain event.