Competitive advantage is not something that remains once it is obtained- it has to be continually rediscovered. The writings of Rita Gunther McGrath help explain how competitive advantage moves in waves. As you ride the wave it will peak and then begin to slide downward, and if you don't figure out a new innovation, be it technology, process or market, you will fall down the slope into a trough.
The key is to hop from wave to wave, launching to the next one as it rises up before your company slides down too far.
Finding Competitive Advantages in Shipping and Logistics
Being able to continually innovate and ride those waves to their peak is part of a manager’s dilemma. It's not feasible to continually invest in the latest and greatest technology. It simply is not doable financially or practically for most companies. In shipping and logistics, the challenge is compounded because differentiation can be hard to find.
The ability to quickly adopt new technologies at low risk and cost is critical in the journey of differentiation and competitive advantage. That is why solutions like Splice are relevant to current and future needs. With the proliferation of new supply chain applications and data sources, Splice provides unique capability to automate and control logistics workflows and integrate existing, new and yet-to-be created applications.
Leverage New Tech into Existing Systems
In the current logistics and shipping environment, new waves are forming. Technology is shaping the next wave as new ways to track cargo, produce electronic documentation, and rate cargo multiply. At Splice, we recently unveiled a container yard automation platform that integrates seamlessly into existing systems, but we're not the only ones producing new innovative platforms. Shippers and logistics providers may already have invested in technology in the recent past, but without ways to take advantage of the latest innovations and find the next wave, they risk being left behind.
Splice as the Great Innovation Integrator
This is part of multi-speed digital transformation. Companies are advancing at varied paces and from different starting points. As was noted during TPMTech, Technology to normalize data and increase its mobility becomes increasingly vital since adoption must fit existing systems. As Eric Johnson, senior technology editor at the JOC recently noted,
“The rise of micro-services and APIs mean that an existing system can be juiced up, often more cheaply and less disruptively than a system overhaul.”
This is a key benefit of Splice. We make it easy to take advantage of the latest data-sharing technologies, leverage it in logistics operations, and weave it into existing systems. Splice is the tool to help shippers and logistics providers to hop from peak to peak.