Warehouse operations have always been intricate enough to manage seamlessly and efficiently but the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the challenges. The pandemic has created many “new normal” paradigms and to address these, warehousing executives will need to create scalable systems to accommodate not only unanticipated demand but associated evolutions in the wake of COVID. Warehouse visibility and mobility have become critical areas to help manage the evolving complexities. SAPinsider published a research report on Modernizing Logistics and Inventory Tracking in 2021 to gauge how SAPinsiders think about these capabilities. In this article, we will discuss how the recent partnership extension between Apple and SAP has the capability to accelerate progress in the area of warehouse mobility.

It Is All About Building Ecosystems

I consistently harp on the importance of partnerships and building ecosystems in today's technology world. In most of our research, including the initial insights for our upcoming, July 2022 research report, Supply Chain Planning in The Cloud, SAPinsiders have highlighted that rapidly evolving customer expectations are key business drivers. Across industries, customer demand and expectations have evolved so rapidly that it is becoming increasingly challenging for one solution provider to develop a solution that will meet all requirements. And this is why building ecosystems through partnerships is extremely important. But it is effective only if you build it the right way.

Creating New Markets Through Ecosystems- Learning The Game from Apple

When you become part of a technology ecosystem that caters to an unfulfilled demand, you also create new markets for your products. Apple dominates the consumer mobile space but few people have noticed a new market it has been penetrating through partnerships for a while now. Back in 2017, it formed a partnership with GE to build an industrial app that helped put the power of Predix, GE's industrial IoT platform, on iPhones and iPads. While the benefits from the mobility perspective are obvious, think about the market it created for Apple's devices.  GE's customer base is huge across industries. Making Apple's devices part of GE's mobility solution opened the market in all these industries. Now Apple has partnerships with IBM, Accenture, Deloitte, Salesforce, and above all, SAP. Why did I use "above all, SAP". Obviously, one reason is that we are obsessed with SAP and partner technology here at SAPinsider. The other reason is what Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, highlighted when this partnership was first forged in 2016- ".... 76% of business transactions worldwide touch an SAP system". This is how strategic leaders identify opportunities. When three-fourths of transactions worldwide are influenced by SAP, a partnership is also a step into getting a share in the digital transformation revolution happening in organizations across industries. The most recent partnership extension in the area of warehouse mobility, specifically in SAP Warehouse Operator and SAP Direct Distribution, has the capability to accelerate warehouse mobility to a whole new level.

Extending The Partnership In Warehouse Mobility

As customer demand and expectations become complex, associated warehouse operations also become complex. Advances in computing and technology, specifically on the edge, allow organizations to leverage smart devices and mobile solutions in a tactical way to address these complexities. Miniaturization, increased performance & energy efficiency, and lower production costs of smart devices, have all contributed to the adoption of smart mobile devices on warehouse floors. Smart sensor computing capabilities have improved significantly, allowing data processing and analysis to take place at or near the source (“edge computing”) and minimizing the quantity of data that must be transferred between the device and the platform. Large, complicated data sets are becoming easier to handle and store thanks to systems like Hadoop. AI and ML algorithms are being developed and tested all the time, increasing our ability to forecast and prescribe actions more accurately. All these aspects create a ripe ground for the proliferation of mobility solutions. This article from SAPinsider covers the significance of warehouse mobility in today's warehousing operations. Industry 4.0 is not just automation or building digital twins. A challenge that companies have encountered in total absorption is a delay in embarking on developing a pool of citizen data scientists in the frontline of operations. The same challenge will be encountered in Industry 4.0 when it gets on the top of the maturity curve. And warehouse mobility solutions have the capability to mitigate this challenge. In an SAPinsider article in 2021, we emphasized that as customer demand and expectations evolve, warehouse operations challenges evolve exponentially. because many warehouses previously exclusively handled items by the pallet, adopting the necessary processes and technology to support pick and pack operations for D2C e-commerce order fulfillment has been a considerable adjustment and extra cost. The extended partnership between SAP and Apple to  SAP Warehouse Operator mobile app for SAP EWM is a key step in addressing these evolving complexities.The Warehouse Operator app, designed for SAP's Extended Warehouse Management solution, helps warehouse workers complete tasks like picking leveraging technologies like computer vision and location awareness. Operators can also read barcodes precisely using the camera on their Apple devices. Analyst Tip: While the mobility aspect of this solution can not be overemphasized, you should also think about how you can leverage the data captured to generate insights about the efficiency of your picking process as well as inventory placement in the warehouse. Also, Apple devices are more than capable to perform edge analytics and hence this presents an opportunity to build a whole additional portfolio of applications for warehouse supervisors and managers to track operations in real-time and act upon real-time insights. If you love the intersection of technology and supply chain operations, you should be really excited since this type of capability opens a flood gate to build many additional capability areas.