Forty-one percent of respondents to a GS1 US survey said their organizations could test new supply-chain technologies but struggled to extend them across operations, highlighting a gap between pilots and deployment.
Redpoint polled 500 supply-chain professionals for GS1 US, with respondents drawn from consumer packaged goods, general merchandise, apparel, healthcare, foodservice and grocery retail. One combined measure put advanced technology use at nearly 60%: respondents said their organizations either automated most supply-chain processes or implemented artificial intelligence and machine-learning systems. GS1 US did not provide separate percentages for the two practices.
Real-time data consolidation was reported by 38% of respondents, while 32% said their organizations still merged information from separate sources by hand. Lack of funding was cited as an obstacle to innovation by 63%, and 62% named fragmented data. GS1 US identified these as the two leading barriers reported in the survey.
The organization’s maturity tiers drew on several operational measures, including how companies managed shared data, governance, automation, trading-partner collaboration and standards adoption. GS1 US placed 20% of respondents in the high-maturity group, 72% in the medium group and 8% in the low group. The tiers reflected those measures rather than respondents’ own ratings of their readiness.
Among high-maturity organizations, 81% reported centralized systems for integrating data in real time. On governance, 85% said they had a clear strategy that was actively carried out, compared with 13% of organizations in the low-maturity group. High-maturity respondents also more often reported easier regulatory compliance (60%), lower costs (52%) and faster time to market (46%). GS1 US described these as outcomes associated with maturity; the survey does not establish that maturity caused them.
“Technology alone is not enough,” said Gena Morgan, GS1 US vice president of global standards. She said supply-chain readiness also depends on trading partners working together and sharing reliable data through common standards. GS1 US is a nonprofit standards body focused on data exchange among companies and their trading partners.
