When the pandemic hit Michigan’s verdant Dutch neighborhood, office furniture company Haworth had to work hard to avoid a total supply chain collapse.

Crystal Fishby, Head of Global Logistics, and her team rushed to create an e-commerce platform to meet the ever-increasing demand for the company’s products. Amid the turmoil of transport, the company’s traders needed access to real-time information about their shipments. So Haworth began using FourKites software to track order progress and help customers anticipate supply chain shocks. “Just like you want to know where an item is coming from when you order from Amazon, our salespeople want to know when it was shipped, to know if the driver is stuck in traffic, bad weather or whatever,” says Mr. Miss Fishby.

Everything from the production line to what is placed on the shelf is controlled in real time using artificial intelligence.

Senior executives around the world are now convinced that such upgrades are needed as the pandemic has shown that supply chains are technologically flawed and far behind in digital commerce. As supply chain problems have subsided this year, attention is now focused on a different kind of “coup” in the $10 trillion global logistics industry. dollars: into a digital transformation where everything from the production line to what goes on the shelf is tracked in real time, where possible, with the help of artificial intelligence and automation.

The long-term benefit of this change would be to reduce inflation after three years of price pressure across the entire supply chain. Investment funds as well as private investors finance logistics technology companies. And the number of unicorns, i.e. companies with a capitalization of more than $1 billion, has doubled in 18 months to over 60, according to CB Insights, a technology market analysis platform based in New York. From Chicago-based startup FourKites to shipping company AP Moller-Maersk A/S, companies are racing to transform every step of the transaction and go digital. This is because many things in the logistics industry are still done by hand.

Less than 10% of warehouses worldwide are fully automated, according to Cowen Inc. “What worked 30 years ago may not work in the future,” notes Corey Tollefsen, president of Arizona-based Blue Yonder Group, a digital supply chain solutions provider that was acquired by Panasonic for $7 billion in 2021. For his part, Daniel Swann, co-head of international operations at McKinsey & Co, characteristically says, “I don’t think we’re going to experience a golden age in the next three to five years where we see companies reinventing their supply chains.”