We are amid one of the most rapid global transformations of trade that the world has ever seen. The past 30 years were a constant drumbeat of globalization, weaving geographically dispersed markets together with breakthroughs in technology and the widespread adoption of lean thinking. The result was the creation of complex and interconnected global supply chains that controlled costs through practices such as just-in-time (JIT) inventory management. Then COVID-19 forced markets to lock down and trading partners to scramble to deliver products to customers. What has become clear is that our supply chains—while having succeeded at reducing costs, and connecting business and consumer markets worldwide—were far less robust than we had imagined.
Today, there is a new push to improve the world’s supply chains, but the focus is now on resiliency. Cost containment is still a factor, so simply ordering and holding more inventory is not the answer. What holds promise is tighter integration and collaboration with both internal and external trading partners, faster access to data, and a new level of transparency and visibility into the end-to-end value chain made possible by digital transformation. The backdrop to these challenges is an accelerating fourth industrial revolution that brings with it the promise of leveraging more data and automation to produce highly-resilient and globally-optimized supply chain networks.
At Microsoft, we are at the forefront of this historic transformation, providing clients worldwide with the digital solutions they need to remain competitive. The four success stories that follow bring to life how Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps organizations realize supply chain transformation and leverage the benefits of a modern, cloud-based, intelligent platform to deliver versatility, scalability, and rapid time to value.
GWA Group enhances efficiency in end-to-end chain
GWA Group Limited (GWA) was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1993 and is a leading innovator, designer, and supplier of product solutions, services, and intelligent technology focused on the Bathrooms & Kitchens (B&K) segment.
Like most businesses, GWA Group struggled with multiple challenges through the pandemic as customer demand shifted, markets locked down, and nodes in the supply chain became unreachable. GWA Group leadership faced a choice: continue with its digital transformation agenda or scale back and redeploy resources elsewhere within the business.
The decision to accelerate digital transformation rather than scaling back was an obvious one to GWA. The company viewed digital transformation not only as a mechanism to allow them to efficiently meet shifting customer needs, but also as a step to prepare the company for future growth covered by a global data platform.
GWA Group worked with Microsoft consulting services to reduce complexity from the business by deploying Dynamics 365 as its end-to-end solution for data and actionable insights. Today, GWA Group has gained digital transparency into its operations, transforming the way they do business and the way the business thinks.
“We are deploying Dynamics 365 to manage the entire business ecosystem lifecycle across Customer Care, Warehouse Management, Finance & Operations, Supply Chain, Commerce, and Marketing—we’re not just transforming the way our business works, we’re actually transforming the way our business thinks. Stripping out complexity across business processes introduces greater flexibility and agility as the industry changes.”—Alex Larson, General Manager Technology & Transformation, GWA Group
Read more about how GWA Group embeds innovation culture with Dynamics 365.