Ware2Go and UPS Rollout New Supply Chain Optimization Tools

As consumers are putting more pressure on retailers and manufacturers to deliver products faster and more accurately, a new breed of supply chain offerings are gaining traction in the industry: fulfillment and delivery platforms. The concept is very simple: Companies can send their products to external warehouses, where the inventory is managed by a third party, then submit fulfillment orders which are processed and shipped by the same service provider. 

An example of fulfillment and delivery platforms is Ware2Go, launched only one year ago by UPS. UPS uses its infrastructure and knowledge as well as certified partners to help companies deliver to their customers in two days or less. Besides its obvious benefits, the platform has a few drawbacks: Companies need to ship inventory to Ware2Go warehouses, items are shipped as they are received (which means that they won’t open a case to ship individual units), and Ware2Go doesn’t provide loss insurance for products stored in its warehouses.

However, Ware2Go is continuously improving its platform. The company just announced new supply chain optimization tools:

• Demand forecasting, to help companies better understand when to prepare items for shipping. 
• Warehouse network optimization, to analyze fulfillment trends and identifies trends.
• Inventory-level optimization, to help companies reduce storage costs.
• Forklift Bot, a voice- and chat-enabled smart assistant, to provide real-time fulfillment information.

Most of these features are already included in traditional supply chain management software products. What many traditional SCM vendors don’t provide is the logistics network and the services associated with it, which can be managed online.

G2 expects to see more solutions like supply chain business networks and 3PL platforms in the near future. The Google traffic growth for these categories highly exceeds that of traditional supply chain product types.

We expect to see new products like Ware2Go in the near future, while traditional SCM vendors are also working on similar offerings. This model is already disrupting the supply chain market and we believe that it will become mainstream in the next decade.