The Rapid Advancement of Tech

The impact technology has had on businesses and the way consumers shop is undeniable. Though technology has been a major present within business for decades, the rate of advancement over the past five to ten years – the rise of cloud adoption, eCommerce retail, automation and robotics, artificial intelligence and 5G, among others – has created expansive opportunities for businesses to innovate, to improve their propositions and customer experience, and to streamline in the name of increasing profitability. A key question presents itself, though: is the impact of technology advancement on businesses and their customers all positive?

The New Supply Chain

For years business has been all about people.

Hard working people produce and deliver great products and services. Innovative thinkers and entrepreneurs spot the next opportunities and forge new markets. Strong, global partnerships become the bedrock for efficient and reliable supply chains. Customers, whether businesses themselves or consumers, bear the fruits from decades of growth and advancement, and become more expecting as each year passes.

But while people and supply chains have established themselves as the backbone of business – the thing that can make it but can also break it – the rise of data and technology is, if not already, sure to take over this mantle.

The weaving of technology into every stage of business and the absolute dependence on it to meet customer expectations, to make processing and payments simple and secure, to guide strategy, and to function in a way that drives productivity, customer loyalty, and profit, means the supply chain of data becoming the new backbone of business is inevitable.

However, as has been the continual challenge for businesses of all shapes of sizes, being the backbone of a business brings great responsibility and influence. A complex supply chain, integrated into every stage of a company, enabling it to operate and scale, often becomes its greatest liability too. It’s a ticking clock of potential disruption that must be carefully and proactively managed. It’s the element of any business that faces continual problems and challenges that are, for the most part, dealt with internally with little to no impact on customers. But every so often…

The New Business Challenge

No business sets out to build their operations and technology stack in such a way that creates risk of costly disruption to customer experience and brand perception. But in the same way that global supply chains have become hugely complex – with multiple people, companies, variables, and controllable and uncontrollable influencers – the relentless growth of technology has created a highly complex web of different systems, speaking in different languages and with different definitions, which are then connected together with the aim of forging a seamless supply chain of data.

A product supply chain is susceptible to risk both within and outside of its control. For example, a forecast error by a supplier, a controllable element, can easily snowball into a severe shortage of staple products for consumers, tarnishing their perception and impacting sales and profits. All businesses work hard to reduce the likelihood of controllable slip ups, though eliminating them altogether is perhaps unachievable. Outside of a company’s direct control, multiple influencers can affect the stability of a supply chain. Extreme weather events, for example, or geo-political issues, such as those influencing the Red Sea area currently, can create delays in product supply which, as well as reducing product availability and experience for customers, can also add millions of dollars into the operating costs of businesses, damaging their resilience.

When everything works as it should, and the world is stable, supply chains enable phenomenal experiences for customers – and fantastic profits to boot. But it’s clear that in the complex supply chains of today, no single person has outright knowledge or control of every activity, process, variable, or influencer. There is a dependence on everything, and everyone, clicking and producing a seamless flow of goods – consistently.

Data and technology are no different.

Gone are the days when one person could have full knowledge and control of the way different systems connect with each other and communicate. No single system provides a complete end to end solution for a business – from source to consumer. No single common language or set of definitions exists.

Each time a new system is added into a technology stack, it becomes a game of risk mitigation – of trying to identify and remove any potential failings in advance. But, as proves to be a highly common occurrence, there is no guarantee that everything does click until the go live switch is flicked.

The supply chain of data is the most powerful of tools in a business’ tool chest as it seeks to evolve, to scale, and to innovate. But it is, perhaps, also its greatest threat.

Reducing the Risks

Is there a world where risk can be completely removed?

The recent challenges faced by companies such as British Airways (2017 IT failure that caused hundreds of flights to be cancelled over a busy holiday weekend), Amazon Web Services (2020 outage that took down thousands of customer’s websites and applications that relied on it), and Equifax (which, in 2017 saw a massive data breach as a result of vulnerabilities in its systems lead to the exposing of 147 million people’s data) to name but a few, suggests not.

In the same way that product supply chains have grown to such an extent that, while bringing extensive benefits, has led to rising risks and vulnerabilities, the explosion of technology is following the same path.

Businesses, therefore, can only seek to significantly reduce the risk of disruptive events triggered by vulnerabilities or issues within their systems (controllable influencers) and the threat of disruption caused by uncontrollable influencers (cyber-attacks, for example) by being cautious and proactive in both design and maintenance.

While a utopian world might see a simpler approach to technology, with common languages and definitions, the reality is businesses will need to piece together more and more complex webs of technology in a way that promotes security, dynamism, scalability, efficiency and, perhaps most importantly, a high level of customer experience. For only with great customer experience comes the opportunity for growth and profit.

RabbitMQ – The Conduit for Robust and Resilient Tech Stacks

Message brokering technology, such as the highly resilient and stable RabbitMQ, are taking a more central role in technology stacks across the world. Though not the shiny facia that some technology is, message brokering technology is the solid structure on which attractive and strong businesses can be built. It’s the core element of the supply chain of data.

As customers become more demanding, uncertainty across the globe rises, business becomes even more competitive, and technology stacks even more complex, businesses should take the lessons from the highly successful companies of the past – without a strong and dependable backbone, the promise of products and services will always be at risk. No business is immune to the threat of disruption.

The new backbone of business – the new supply chain – is data and technology. And with that, the priority for all companies should be keeping it as healthy and as
strong as possible.

The new backbone of business – the new supply chain –is data and technology. And with that, the priority forall companies should be keeping it as healthy and asstrong as possible