Dear friends, here we move to the 3rd part of Logistics Week Series. The logistic industry is going through an unprecedented transformation and today, we are going to study the role of Big Data in optimizing Supply Chain Operations. Big Data is still a relatively untapped asset that logistics companies can exploit once they adopt a shift of mindset and apply the right drilling techniques. Sophisticated data analytics can consolidate this traditionally fragmented sector, and these new capabilities put logistics providers in pole position.

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OptimisingSupply ChainWithBig Data Logistics
Dear friends, here we move to the 3rd part of Logistics Week Series. The logistic industry is
going through an unprecedented transformation and today, we are going to study the role of Big
Data in optimizing Supply Chain Operations.
Big Data is still a relatively untapped asset that logistics companies can exploit once they adopt a
shift of mindset and apply the right drilling techniques. Sophisticated data analytics can
consolidate this traditionally fragmented sector, and these new capabilities put logistics providers
in pole position.
Big Data in Logistics Business planning
For years, analysts have depended upon macro indicators like good’s category, demand volume
and supply levels etc. to forecast oncoming impact. Big Data disrupts the logistics space with its
capability to extract micro indicators that have significant impact on the business.
 Demand and Supply Chain Forecasting
Every transaction in Supply Chain is producing data and every actor involved in it is releasing
information. Big Data is compounding the structured and unstructured data into actionable
insights, giving a more accurate forecast.
 Sales and Marketing Intelligence

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Big Data in Logistics can give a customized market research and venture into demographics to
target potential customers, scaling business.
 Hyper Local Business Models
New data sets available from GPS, embedded sensors and mobile apps are enabling the logistics
players to become hyper-specialised, developing launch pad to augment new value-added
services. For example, C2C Logistics (consumer-to-consumer) ecosystem that would allow
shipments to flow from one consumer to another.
Big Data in Logistics Customer Service
Here is how Big Data makes an impact to create a superior customer service- meeting the
requirements of Logistics ecosystem.
 Customer Retention
Big data combined information of customer’s complaints, requests, appreciations and other
interactions from conventional CRM and combine it with publicly available sentiments on news,
annual reports and social media to identify patterns that can point out potential attrition in the
customer. The information can be further applied into programmed application to automatically
trigger loyalty programs.
 Service Performance Continuity
To measure and tune supply chain performance, customer feedback provides valuable insights.
Apart from the traditional customer surveys, the customers now are discussing the brand,
services and products on social networks and discussion forums. Big Data techniques now are
analysing unbiased customer sentiments from the huge text, audio, video data etc. can identify
correlations between various parameters and can be broken down by location, action and time.
Logistics as a Data-driven Business
Big Data analytics can provide competitive advantage because of five distinct properties. These
five properties highlight where Big Data can be most effectively applied in the logistics industry.
Let us see them in the below picture.

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(Source: DHL)
These properties make using Big Data invaluable in Supply Chain Management. Instead of
having to depend fully on what you can see, you can predict, use data from past operations, and
so much more to increase operational efficiency.