People on the Move by Cargomatic

Throughout the career of Melanie Nuce, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, GS1 US, three key business concerns related to the supply chain have remained constant: how to grow revenue, how to reduce costs and how to manage risks.

The desire to make supply chains more efficient is always the name of the game. Nuce spoke about the importance of data standards in emerging technologies to make these supply chain goals a reality for companies.

By its very nature, the supply chain is a behind-the-scenes magician, but today’s customer looking for that seamless omnichannel experience puts the spotlight on the supply chain in a new way.

It’s no solely on longer marketing and the front end required to satisfy the customer's needs; the supply chain must do its part.

“If anything, 2020 has taught us [this],” Nuce said. “We need to accelerate our investments in digital. It’s about delighting a customer, and the supply chain is three parts of it. It’s the physical goods that get to the shelf or doorstep. It’s the financials that make that possible. And it’s the data.”

But if data plays a vital role in shaping supply chain efficiencies, what challenges does this information bring?

“We’re in a world now where we all live attached to some device at all times,” Nuce said. “Data is at my fingertips. And so, whatever that data is, it had to come from somewhere.”

Nuce said there needs to be a way to share all that produce data amongst the community of multiple suppliers in a standardized way.