| |September 20189egy. This has quite an impact on the supply chain. This impact of Indus-try 4.0 on the supply chain has been termed as "Logistics 4.0", which is characterized by smart warehousing, smart transportation, supply chain visibility etc. With digitalization and availability of Big Data, there has been more value and optimization in the supply chain, but also at the same time the supply chain has turned out to be complex than earlier.The traditional supply chain was simpler, but had less visibility between the levels involved, thus hin-dering meaningful collaboration of the supply chain. Communication was delayed as it was passed through each level in a hierarchy & hence resulted in lower level of responsiveness. But, with digitalization, the traditional supply chain has grown to be an integrat-ed supply chain ecosystem, with complete visibility & simultaneous communication across the whole supply chain. This integrated supply chain ecosystem is also characterized by high flexibility & responsiveness right from planning till execution level.Supply Chain as the Epicentre of Digital Enterprise:Companies are moving towards a digital workplace, where there is application of E-finance & E-HR, & com-plete reliance on digital knowledge sharing. Vertical integration, big data process optimization, augmented reality etc. has set in forth in the engineering & man-ufacturing practices. Industry 4.0 has also marked its place in the business models of the companies via digitally enhanced products & services & automated solutions. Companies are orienting themselves to the customer through e-commerce, digital marketing, so-cial media, in a motive to maximize customer experience. Hence, virtu-ally every aspect of business is being transformed through the vertical inte-gration of research and development, manufacturing, marketing and sales, other internal operations, and new business models based on these ad-vances. As supply chain management serves as the connecting nerves of all the business aspects, hence with digi-talization of whole business processes, the digitaliza-tion of supply chain is a must.Conclusion:Supply chains are extremely complex, and no compa-ny has yet succeeded in building a supply chain that's truly digital. Indeed, many of the applications & trends required for moving towards a digital ecosystem are not yet widely used. But this will change radically over the next few years, with different industries imple-menting digital supply chain at varying speeds. Com-panies that get there first will gain a difficult-to-chal-lenge advantage in the race to Industry 4.0, and will be able to set, or influence technical standards for that particular industry. The advantage of adopting these technological trends will be by no means limited to the increased efficiencies of operations, but also set a com-petitive advantage amongst the counterparts. At the initial phase, undoubtedly many challenges in adapt-ing to the technology trends will come up, but ulti-mately we will be moving towards a fully digital ecosystem. WITH DIGITALIZATION AND AVAILABILITY OF BIG DATA, THERE HAS BEEN MORE VALUE AND OPTIMIZATION IN THE SUPPLY CHAINJasjit Sethi
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