| | January 20169CIOReviewThe role of an e-commerce third party logistics(3PL) has been trending much closer to the consumerIncreased Consumer Access to DataAnother recent trend that has had a significant impact on how I spend my time is the steady influx of colossal amounts of data that retailers now expose or push directly to the consumer. Many newly established retailers share information from much further up the supply chain than ever before. They notify their customers when bulk orders have dropped, when goods leave the manufacturer, when they arrive at the domestic port, when we receive them, when they are shipped, in-transit, and delivered. My team sources, consolidates, and distributes a lot of this data which in turn helps them in establishing consumer expectations while maintaining a level of excitement. Similar changes can be observed in the international shipping and reverse logistics arena. Consumers expect fewer surprises and a higher degree of transparency, resulting in better managing efficiencies and exposure of data at comparatively higher frequencies.Mobile TechnologiesMobile technologies have also signifi-cantly changed the way we think about integrating with our clients and their cus-tomers. Even the voice picking system we use in our warehouse sends transactions to an Android smart phone, freeing us up from having to purchase specialized RF devices. Because of the proliferation of mobile technologies, customers now look at smaller screens while on the move, and want to see more information and less unorganized data, faster than ever. That is, pivot tables and lengthy reports have been replaced with concise graphics and summary information asclients expect in-formation to be updated in real time. End of night processes and batches have been quickly replaced with API connectivity and the exchange of pre-aggregated data and summary information ready to feed graphical reporting tools. After the con-firmation of their e-commerce orders, the consumers expect the picture to change anytime throughout the day. My team and I have largely transitioned from writers of transactional reports to consolidators and publishers of specialized data-sets.Overall, I find that the role of an e-commerce third party logistics(3PL) has been trending much closer to the consumer, and my job has changed accordingly. From managing the algorithms that harvest mentions from social media, to pushing different kinds of information to e-commerce retailers so that they can manage customer expectations, to facilitating changes to the actual data we exchange so that it is more mobile device friendly, the trend for the last few years is clearly more data, faster. In order to free up the resources to facilitate that, we have given up our tight control of enterprise level resources and started to leverage best-in-breed hosted solutions wherever possible. There has been clear shift towards contest sourced application development, and I am looking forward to dipping our toes into that new world, as well. The one thing that I can be sure of, is that the next time I stop to take a look back in time, I will be just as amazed by all the unimaginable innovation in the e-commerce space, and to my own role, as a CIO.
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