State of the Retail Supply Chain: Cutting Supply Chain Costs Through Scanning and AI

By Lukas Kinigadner, CEO and co-founder, Anyline

With 2024 on the horizon, retail fleets are preparing for another year of twists and turns. In fact, the industry is expecting freight revenues to be down for a good portion of the year. 51% of respondents in the CNBC Supply Chain Survey said they expect full freight rates to be down in the first quarter and 67% of respondents said they expect freight volumes to be either down or unchanged in the first half of 2024.

To react, retailers and supply chain managers will be looking to cut costs and make up for the decrease in deliveries made. Luckily, improving fleet management by leveraging technology is an efficient way to alleviate these costs. For example, mobile scanning tools that capture data and advanced insights that analyze data can both make an exponential difference for retail fleet owners. This is especially true when considering the fact that poor data quality costs organizations an average of $12.9 billion.

2024 is expected to be another year of innovative data and AI solutions, and retailers that leverage these technologies to decrease costs will be ahead for years to come.

A good starting place is to adopt scanning technology to capture a wide variety of complex data. Mobile scanning tools can make the data-collection process smoother and prevent human errors. With scanning technology, retail fleet managers can keep track of the state of their tires, license plates, VINs and other complex data points, which also mitigates future costs that can occur down the road, such as accidents, expensive repairs and inefficient vehicle checks. Ultimately, these capabilities will assist retailers with revenue by keeping their fleets running safely on the road for a longer period of time.

Gathering data through scanning alone simply is not enough to efficiently cut costs in 2024, so expect to see retail fleets taking advantage of AI-backed advanced insights. Too often there is a disconnect between data and decision makers, which leads to incorrect assumptions, biased influences and poor strategic outcomes. With AI, retail fleets are able to draw valuable insights around reporting, forecasting and analytics in real time.

Innovation is sure to be the theme for 2024. AI is taking over, and the retail supply chain is no exception. Because fleet rates will be down, retailers that utilize technology to capture and analyze insights will be those that make up for the lost revenue that comes with the decrease in business.