Tetra Pak A Digitally Enabled Supply Chain As A Competitive Advantage Case Solution

2. Tetra Pak’s Three Digital Capabilities Pillars

The pillars that the management of Tetra Pak considered to have a greater weightage for structuring, comprehending as well as communicating the probability and significance of digital technology in order to gain a competitive advantage in the packaging and distribution industry, according to the case study are connected workforce, connected solutions and advanced analytics. The reason behind the pillar of the connected workforce is to keep the flow of information running between the staff members by means of wearable and mobile technology so that there is no delay in the operations of the organisational functions. In addition to this, the purpose of selecting advanced analytics as a pillar is to develop and link a clear stream of data patterns, which is understandable as well as is meaningful. This is not only linked to the internal information stream of the company but also include the data patterns and information received from outside the organisation, for instance, vendors and consumers. In addition to this, the pillar of connected solutions to provide the consumers with a better customer experience by means of incorporating technology in the company’s services and products. These three pillars can achieve profitable as well as sustainable growth for the company in the long term.

3. Application of Digital Capabilities Pillar

The capability pillars outlined by Tetra Pak are able to influence the XYZ organisation in an effective manner. The two pillars, which are concentrated within this section, are advanced analytics and connected workforce (Mele, Russo Spena, & Colurcio, 2010). Having a connected workforce is in itself a competitive advantage for any organisation, meaning that information flow between the workforce should be smooth, and there is little chance of miscommunication. In order to implement the culture of a connected workforce, the management should devise strategies to bring the department and teams together in each step of the operational processes. In addition to this, encouraging collaboration within the teams will result in increased and enhanced efficiency (Ives, Palese, & Rodriguez, 2016).

In addition to this, advanced analytics plays a vital in discovering actionable insights, which will assist the business in future growth. In order to successfully implement advanced analytics, the organisation should decide on the key indicators that are considered to be meaningful for the organisations. Moreover, for acquiring actionable insight, the gathered data should be modelled in an appropriate manner, without that the results of the analysis would be poor. The organisation should carefully plan the analytics goal, specifically when the data is being acquired as well as combined through different sources (Ramirez & Mannervik, 2008).

4. Tetra Pak’s Digitally Enabled Supply Chain Strategy and SMAC Model

Like numerous other sectors, supply chain and logistics providers handle large data volumes and the consistently changing demand of the market. The models which are grounded upon the Social, Mobile, Analytic and Cloud are coming to be more popular within the industry. The cloud computing technology is able to help the supply chain and logistics companies to address the needs of the consumer in a much timely manner. In addition to this, if Tetra Pak syndicates the platform of cloud computing with upgrading technologies the company will be able to drastically achieve its goals and priorities (Oghazi, Fakhrai Rad, Karlsson, & Haftor, 2018). 

The time management systems which are cloud based can assist the company in improving the critical functions of the supply chain, in addition to meeting the needs and requirements of the client (Gong, Jia, Brown, & Koh, 2018). The cloud based SAAS is able to offer flexibility, speed as well as enhanced functionality to Tetra Pak, on the other hand, there is only one obstacle, which is that it would become quite challenging to differentiate and innovate from the competing organisation within the industry, in case a similar cloud solution is implemented. Technology has come to be a prime function within the logistics and supply chain industry, it is considered to be the basic elements of each business process and taking advantage of technology for the purpose of gaining a technological advantage is able to take numerous forms and shapes (Chichoni & Webb, 2018).

In addition to this, using mobile technology can keep the flow of information speedy and on the worker's fingertips, which would make it easier and faster to achieve the results. The IoT concept is nothing new for the advanced supply chain and logistics companies. The logistics organisations have been taking advantage of mobile technologies for a long period of time (Clauson, Breeden, Davidson, & Mackey, 2018). Employing mobile technology can assist Tetra Pak in managing assets, gathering critical data, which can steer the efficiency of business operations as well as satisfy the growing needs of the consumers. Investing within the mobile technology or IoT devices would pilot a transformational modernisation alongside an unparalleled impact upon the operational, environmental and safety efficiencies of the company. This would increasingly enhance the safety, accuracy as well as the efficiency, which would qualify the visibility of the supply chain to a whole new level (Marinagi, Trivellas, & Reklitis, 2015).

Furthermore, analytics and big data have a huge influence, promise and potential then again, these efforts are grounded upon the quality of data and disciplines as these are considered as star schemes and tools. Tetra Pak should establish a structure which authorises users as well as rewards innovation while maintaining a clear focus upon the pattern of data to make sure the quality is thoroughly embedded within the efforts of the company. These organisational efforts are able to make improvements in a fast pace within the management of data which would harness the big data power, in addition to maximising the analytical efforts of the company (Chiaroni & Urbinati, 2017).