Retailers are right to be worried by the strike action at Royal Mail with Black Friday and peak season on the horizon, plus an economic crisis. In the age of never normal, with ever-increasing supply disruptions amid shifting buying patterns as spending tightens, it is no longer feasible to simply increase inventory buffers to absorb volatility. Retailers need to be able to continuously sense, respond and adapt plans quickly and cost-effectively.

Moving supply chain planning to the cloud with a digital twin improves speed and quality of decision-making by allowing better interoperability between different business units, dissolving data silos, and providing on-demand scenario planning. Through real end-to-end digital twin capabilities, you can see the implication of the planned reduced capacities of deliveries on specific dates and assess the best alternative response and account for the impact on service levels and cost.

The digital twin allows you to make the best decisions on how to react to situations when you still have time to reduce the negative impact through your actions. This means we could expect retailers to react even more quickly to unexpected changes and continue delighting customers everywhere, whilst effectively managing the squeeze on margins.