Zhitong Finance APP learned that on November 1, IDC released IDC MarketScape: 2023 Vendor Evaluation of Overall Solution of Digital Supply Chain Made in China and IDC MarketScape: 2023 Vendor Evaluation of Overall Solution of Digital Supply Chain for Retail in China. The report pointed out that in recent years, the constraints of resource and environmental factors have been tightened, the adaptability between manufacturing supply and market demand is not high, and the stability of industrial chain supply chain is facing challenges. Promoting digital transformation of supply chain is the key to realize deep interconnection and coordinated response of industrial chain supply chain. With the continuous promotion of "Made in China 2025", Chinese manufacturing and retail enterprises have shown unprecedented positive intentions towards intelligent manufacturing, but in this key aspect of supply chain, most enterprises in China are still in the early stage. IDC survey found that only 24% of enterprises 'supply chain digital transformation level reached the replication integration stage or above, which is far behind the overall enterprise digital transformation level of 56.3%.

Digital supply chain integrated solution is based on manufacturing and retail enterprise supply chain strategic objectives and business status quo, with data driven as the main line, to provide manufacturing or retail enterprises with integrated collaborative digital supply chain solutions including marketing, production and marketing collaboration, procurement, warehousing, distribution, production and outsourcing.

However, in the face of different solutions with different advantages, manufacturing and retail enterprises are also facing unprecedented difficulties in choosing when building digital supply chains, and the imbalance between supply and demand between systematic demand and single-point supply in the market will continue to exist. Being able to combine the current situation and future strategy of the enterprise one by one, starting with consulting services, assisting the enterprise to formulate the blueprint of digital supply chain construction and implementing it in stages will be one of the most important capabilities for end users when selecting service providers.

IDC selected 11 representative service providers from the market for in-depth research:

Manufacturing industry service providers include(in alphabetical order): Accenture (ACN.US), Cainiao, Dassault Systèmes, Dingjie Software (300378.SZ), Hande Information (300170.SZ), Huigong Cloud, Jingdong, Kejian Software, Meiyun Zhishu, Sugi Technology, Weizhi Information;Retail industry service providers include(In alphabetical order): Ande Zhilian, Accenture, Cainiao, Dassault Systems, Fuller Technology, Hande Information, Jingdong, Kejian Software, Meiyun Zhishu, Shanshu Technology, Shunfeng Technology.

Based on the report, IDC found that with the improvement of internal maturity of enterprises, the demand at the end of digital supply chain is gradually released, but the high-quality supply in the market is insufficient. End users generally expect to find a total solution service provider in a segmented industry to build a digital supply chain with users. However, at present, service providers in the market are still dominated by single-point application supply, lacking mature vendors that can provide overall solutions. With the layout of some professional manufacturers to integrated manufacturers and the improvement of their own capabilities, the supply of this market will gradually enrich in the future.

At present, most of the head customer projects in large-scale industries such as complete vehicles, consumer electronics, food and beverage, and new energy are dominated.

The complex manufacturing industry has huge market potential for middle-waist customers. With the saturation of mature market and the improvement of service provider capability, the future market will overflow to other directions and penetrate from the head chain main enterprise to the middle-waist customer, which will finally improve the resilience of the overall industrial chain supply chain synchronously.

End users and service providers continue to improve supply chain awareness, but there are still deficiencies

In the Chinese market, supply chain management as an imported word, this management concept only in the world top 500 global enterprises have actual organization, process and IT application at the beginning, even the local head enterprises to the supply chain understanding only stay in the procurement, sales business management level. In recent years, with the supply chain industry chain becoming a hot word, the rapid development of e-commerce and the continuous improvement of internal maturity of enterprises, local enterprises have begun to pay more attention to digital supply chain. Even so, the perception of digital supply chains on both sides of the supply chain is still in a period of rapid growth and consensus building. With the landing of more industry benchmark customers and the flow of personnel, the improvement of cognition and the formation of consensus between both parties are prerequisites for the rapid and healthy development of the market in the future.

Some service providers gradually increase the weight of consulting business

The consulting services provided by traditional service providers are mainly light consulting, only to enhance the sales opportunities of single-point products. The consulting services are strongly related to their own products, and the coverage is limited. The construction of digital supply chain requires overall optimization and long construction cycle. It is often necessary for service providers to carry out top-level consultation planning first, divide digital supply chain construction stages, and then introduce specific product construction by stages in combination with customer strategic objectives and current situation. The survey observed that some service providers have begun to adjust their organizational structure in recent years, absorb industry talents, and gradually increase the scope and importance of consulting business.

Digital supply chain professionals are extremely scarce

Whether it is a senior consultant with industry Know-How or a senior engineer proficient in operations research +AI algorithms, they are very popular in the market, and the shortage of employees has become the biggest obstacle to the growth of the market. At present, the target customers of this market are mainly large enterprises in the manufacturing and retail industries, spanning the main businesses of enterprise procurement, sales, production, inventory, logistics, etc., and talents with deep understanding of the industry are needed in all aspects of product R & D, consultation and delivery. Only by quickly building a team and establishing a perfect internal training mechanism and talent echelon can manufacturers support solid project delivery, continuously polish products and compete with each other at the same time, and occupy a place in market competition.

Logistics technology companies have obvious advantages at the retail end and begin to penetrate into complex manufacturing.

E-commerce and supporting logistics providers in the Chinese market have developed rapidly in the past ten years and have obvious advantages in the global market. In this process, on the basis of providing physical supply chain services such as warehouse distribution, logistics technology companies incubated by head e-commerce and three-party logistics providers also begin to export supply chain technology solutions due to their natural advantages in retail digital supply chain. According to the survey, retailers 'supply chains are significantly more digitized than manufacturers, which is deeply related to this phenomenon. Compared with retail customers, the market for Chinese manufacturing customers is broader, logistics technology companies have begun to penetrate into manufacturing, and there have been some successful cases, but overall, the service capability of manufacturing end needs to be further improved.

Ecological cooperation still needs to be strengthened

The market is divided into many customer types by industry segment, covering a wide range of business, and it is difficult for a single vendor to provide all services. While providing their own core competitiveness services, manufacturers often need to pull ecological forces to jointly assist users in establishing digital supply chains. At present, competition among mainstream manufacturers is greater than cooperation. Although there are many opportunities for one-off cooperation in shallow projects, there is no long-term stable ecological cooperation. Most vendors provide consulting, platforms, applications and services at the same time, and have not yet formed a clearer consensus and positioning, which is the main reason for less ecological cooperation.

Du Yanze, IDC China manufacturing industry research manager, said that the overall digital maturity of Chinese manufacturing and retail enterprises is increasing year by year, but the digital maturity of supply chain is still in its infancy. With the uncertainty of supply chain becoming the norm, head enterprises are seeking digital transformation of supply chain, aiming to transform supply chain from cost center to opportunity center. More and more service providers begin to provide overall digital supply chain solutions for enterprises, but the lack of awareness of service providers, insufficient ecological cooperation and lack of experienced industry consultants are the current status quo of market supply. In the next few years, with the leading effect of excellent cases and the improvement of service provider capabilities, end-user demand will continue to be released, and the manufacturers who focus on this market first will have the first-mover advantage.