Jan 26, 2004Accenture has partnered with more than 25 clients across virtually all industries on Silent Commerce business case analyses, pilot programs and solution implementations. The technology has now reached a critical turning point in the take-up curve, and Accenture sees numerous possibilities for other industries.
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Freight transportation companies, for example, will save millions of dollars annually by identifying inefficiencies in delivery operations and by tracking assets automatically from pallets to planes. Consumer packaged goods companies could benefit from increased certainty of the demand signals throughout the supply chain, improving demand planning forecast accuracy by 10 percent to 20 percent. Retailers could radically change the way they do business within the retail supply chain by tagging merchandise at various levels, automating processes within the distribution center and using RFID to reduce delivery lead times in the transport of goods.
Focusing on Silent Commerce possibilities for the pharmaceutical industry, Accenture formed a consortium of manufacturers, distributors and retailers to prove the business value of Electronic Product Codes (EPCs) and RFID within the supply chain. As EPCs are integrated into the pharmaceutical supply chain, Accenture expects many companies to benefit from increased revenue because they will be able to reduce counterfeiting, streamline logistics and cut out-of-stocks. The companies will also save up to 5 percent from increased labor productivity and reduced shrinkage, and see a 5 to 30 percent reduction in working and fixed capital resulting from optimized inventory levels and superior asset utilization.