The 5-point check

1. Do you think digitally?

We write e-mails, use accounting programs, and optimise routes online. But does that make us digital? Most logistics specialists are still living with media and systems interruptions. With patchwork solutions made up of both analogue and digital applications. This is where worlds collide, costing time and money and causing errors. Digital change starts when you stop thinking in terms of departments, work areas, and data silos and start thinking in terms of processes. What's important is the seamless, automated meshing of actions and events. It's an invisible cord linking the service provider, data, and information – right from the call-off order to invoicing for a specific job. Thinking digitally primarily means thinking holistically and in terms of a series. And what do you think?

2. Is your digitalisation strategy on ice?

That's about as useful as having it just on your own desktop. After all, if you're thinking along new lines, you need to know where the lines lead. And this is important not just for management but also for the entire staff. At the end of the day, digital transformation brings about deep-reaching changes that can cause anxiety and uncertainty. Nonetheless, digitalisation can only really work if it is embraced by all of your employees. A digitalisation strategy doesn't merely define the measures and milestones of the transformation process. It's also, so to speak, a guiding principle for your emergence into a new world. Like with all major goals, easy-to-manage substeps and feedback structures help to bring about a motivational sense of achievement and enable you to shape your own change. So when's your next meeting with the project team?

3. Are you trying to rediscover the world?

Then you need to be a true Hercules. Or to see your task for what it is. After all, we should never forget one thing: Digitalisation already started infiltrating our world of business when zeros and ones showed up in binary code. And decades have passed since then. In times gone by, IT was a closed book. It was a really expensive undertaking that cost companies an endless amount of effort. But in today's cloud era, nobody needs to rediscover the world or even set the world on fire. Platform solutions such as AX4 deliver the full infrastructure for the continuous digitalisation of logistical processes and smooth collaboration in logistics networks. Configured, ready-to-use software modules can be integrated into any business quickly and easily. Are you on the right track? If you've been puzzling over a new IT solution for months already but the beta phase keeps going wrong and the implementation deadline's been pushed far back, you're probably barking up the wrong tree.

4. Unsuccessful so far?

In the modern IT world, there's a shortcut for learning curves. Instead of getting a bloody nose when the forces of digital change throw you off course, why not send a colleague into the fray: a digital twin! Anything can be achieved with a virtual copy of the real world. What happens if I increase the volumes in my system by a third? What effects would a lockdown have on my logistics processes? How can I dampen the effects of a pandemic on my network? You can now run through any conceivable scenario or action without any risk! The digital twin consulting model provides companies with answers to strategic logistics questions and makes failure part of the path to success. And when did you last fall flat on your face?

5. Am I a supply chain leader?

Logistics specialists who want to know how far digitalisation has advanced in their company and where they are in comparison with the competition can carry out a digital maturity check with Siemens Digital Logistics. This allows your current position to be determined in comparison with digital supply chain leaders, provides information about possible action areas, and forms the basis for a custom key performance indicator system that constantly increases the quality of processes. Are you already a supply chain leader? Or would you like to be one in the future?

We can get you ready for the digital transformation!